


The Best Soy Latte that You Ever Had and Me

by plinys



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Rush (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Hipsters, Coffee, Eventual Fluff, Feat Party Boy James and "Not Getting Paid Enough to Deal with this Idiot" Hipster Niki, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:14:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 36,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James stumbles upon a rather pretentious privately owned coffee shop with the least personable barista in the history of baristas, but he makes drinks like he's god's gift to mankind and James can't help himself from coming back time and time again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ginger Tea Latte

**Author's Note:**

> Shameless self serving coffee shop/hipster au.  
> Because I have no shame, and every fandom needs one.
> 
> Plus I need to break away from writing angst stuff and try happy fluffy things, and literally what is more fluff filled than coffee shop aus, the answer is nothing.

He wakes up feeling like death in an unfamiliar bedroom, which admittedly is not an entirely foreign experience for James. In fact, if his morning didn’t start like this, it would have been considered abnormal.

There’s a noise from beside him, as his bedfellow begins to awaken, but before he can even turn on the charm and convince whoever it is to partake in the breakfast of champions, his stomach turns. The distance between the bedroom and the bathroom is thankfully short enough that he makes it in time before the aftereffects of partying the night before comes back to him.

When he pulls back from the toilet seat and wipes his mouth against the back of his hand, he notices the girl in the doorway. She’s a pretty thing, not that James has particularly high standards, especially not when drunk off his ass, with long blonde hair and an upturned nose which is scrunched up at him. Clearly his conquest from the night before, she stands in the door way in a matching set of lace undergarments that leave very little to the imagination.

He can’t seem to remember her name, it’s something with a G or maybe a J, he’s not entirely sure. The only thing that sticks out in his mind is a vague memory of shower sex, but from what he remembers it was a highly satisfying night for both of them.

“Are you alright,” Jenny asks.

It takes a second for the question to penetrate the unbelievable pounding in his head, and when it finally does, he manages a nod that only seems to make his hangover worse.

 “I’m fine,” James struggles to say.

“You don’t look fine.”

Of course, he doesn’t.

He’s got his head halfway over the toilet and he never tends to do hangovers gracefully. Drinking that he can do just fine, it’s the mornings after that always suck ass.

“I can call somebody or something-“

“Babe, really, I’m good, right as rain,” he says this time grinning a bit more, “though if you could get me some coffee I would be infinitely better.”

“I don’t think we have any,” Gina says looking over her shoulder, “but let me check.”

While she slinks off to look for coffee, James pushes himself off the bathroom floor, making sure to flush the remnants of his drunken escapes away before heading back to her bedroom and collecting his clothing off of where it had been abandoned the night before in their need to get at each other. His pants are the easiest to find, and after a bit of searching he finds his shirt tossed under her desk, his socks are another story entirely, but James can do without socks.

“Nope no coffee,” Grace calls interrupting his thoughts, “however I did find some leftover rum from last night.”

“Perfect,” James shouts back to her, as he pulled his shirt over his shoulders.

Quickly he double checks to make sure all of his belongings were in his pockets and lost somewhere in the room. Satisfied with what he finds, he wanders in the general direction of what he assumes is the kitchen. His glorious one-night stand is there talking to another girl, that James quickly guesses to be her housemate. When the two of them see him he makes sure to smirk back, which earns a snort from the other girl, before she excuses herself quick a quick, “Catch you later, Gemma,” and a nod in his general direction.

“You said something about rum?”

She laughs at him, before handing him a chipped class with a very familiar golden brown liquid inside of it. In all honest, drinking while hungover probably wasn’t one of his best ideas, but then again it was certainly a quick fix if he kept it up for the rest of the day.

James lived a life of pleasure, one that had made him very aware of the fact that he could keep putting hangovers at bay as long as he never stopped drinking.

“So look,” Gemma, because apparently that was her name, says, “I really hate to do this, but I have to get to O-Chem, so I’m going to need to kick you out.”

“O-Chem right, because you’re biology major.”

“Pre-med, actually.”

“I was close.”

She has an obnoxious little laugh at his expense, and James swallows down his drink.

“You should probably get to class too.”

He shrugs in a sort of noncommittal way rather than giving an answer. James doesn’t have class, because James never has class. However, explaining to some random hookup why he’s living in a college town if not actually attending college is far too much effort for this early in the morning.

“Let’s do this again sometime,” Gemma says as she walks him out to the door, “call me, kay?”

He nods his head dismissively and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans, already having no intention of calling her back. He wasn’t even certain that he had her number. See that was the glory of college towns, filled with girls like her, or guys because James wasn’t particularly picky, who were perfect for one night stands and never seeing again.

No reason to get attached or settle down, he wasn’t the settling down type.

As he navigates his way down the streets, the bit taste of rum mixed with vomit in the back of his throat and the hints of a hangover still throbbing in his head, he searches for a Starbucks or something that would sell coffee. Honestly, he’s not picky, and there’s usually a Starbucks on every corner or so.

Except when he actually needs one he can’t find any.

Then, as if god smiles down upon him, he finds something.

Not a Starbucks, but rather a pretentious looking place that calls itself a café, and has a welcome board outside which rather than telling him what the specials but instead reads in cramped block letters: _Full motivation is the Wednesday._

At least, now he knows what day it is.

Probably.

The inside of the coffee shop, or café as they like to call it, is just as pretentious as the outside. The few occupants of the establishment sit on worn leather chairs and look like they’re pretending to study in the dim light. The song playing though the café lacks the pulsing beat of music that James likes to listen to, and instead has that weird hum to it and flat voice that all that indie music prides itself on having.  

Standing behind the counter is probably the least personable barista in history, a scowl set deep on his face as he fiddles with the machinery. He’s wearing a cardigan under his work apron (for fuck’s sake, a cardigan) with the sleeves rolled up and skinny jeans that seem too tight to even be fair.

When James rings the bell on the counter top, the barista swirls to look at him, not losing the scowl and clearly not caring about his customer service skills. His name tag reads Niki, which sounds like some pretentious hipster nickname if James has ever heard one. It was probably not even his real name.

“Do you need something,” the barista, Niki, asks.

“You have an accent,” James announces, it’s a nice accent, but most certainly not from around here.

The barista gives him a deadpanned look in reply.

“It’s not a bad thing,” he barrels on, “just not what I was expecting-“

“We’re you going to actually order something, or did you come in here to make fun of my accent?”

He hadn’t been intending to make fun of him, though the barista most certainly deserved it for having such a negative attitude. James could already imagine how easy it would be to rile this guy up, he seemed like the time. In the end, he decided to keep his mouth shut, it was better than insulting him further and ending up with a poisoned drink.

“A double shot, no make that a triple shot.”

“Of espresso,” Niki replies with a tone that was a mix of distaste and disbelief.

“No vodka,” he sasses back, before backtracking a bit, “actually, do you guys do that here? Like an Irish coffee.”

He was pretty sure that that was a thing, had it somewhere else before in his many experiences of traveling the country looking for parties and easy lays.

Niki rolls his eyes in reply before giving a sharp, “no, we don’t,” as an answer.

“Then espresso would be great, love,” James replies with a wink, that earns him a glare in return.

“You know that’s not going to help.”

“What?” For a second James thinks that he’s talking about the pet name.

“You’re hung over,” the barista says a bit too sharply, and yeah, James is, but he’s not entirely sure how that’s relevant. “The coffee will only make it worse. Tea or something would-“

“Sure, whatever that sounds good then.”

Niki blinks at him obviously unhappy about having been cut off, before nodding a bit and turning away, but not without calling the price over his shoulder and gives James a spectacular view of what those skinny jeans do to his backside. Maybe there were a few plus sides to that whole pretentious hipster look.

“Step leering at me,” Niki says without turning around from where he’s working.

“I’m not leering,” James replies with a tsk, “I’m simply admiring the view, it’s much better from this side. Far less atrocious and hipster.”

The guy stiffens at once his hands freezing over the hot water machine, before speaking in a tone that barely shakes, “excuse me for not being the eye candy you hoped for.”

  “You’re not excused.”

A few seconds later he returned to the counter slams the drink down with a bit more force than was necessary and retrieves the money from the counter.

“Has anybody ever told you that your customer service skills are complete shit,” James asks, once he takes his drink.  

“I’ve been informed,” is all he says before sweeping back to whatever he was doing before. Ignoring James once again.

The drink was heavenly, some sort of ginger tea latte, which would have sounded like a terrible idea in his head, but had been executed by god’s gift to coffee machines.

Well, now James at least understood why the shop kept Niki around as a barista, his people skills may have been shit, but his drink making skills were heavenly.

It was only later when he’d been about to throw the cup away that he noticed what was written on the side of his cup in the same messy black handwriting that had adorned the welcome board was one word: _asshole._


	2. White Chocolate Mocha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for such an enthusiastic response to my first chapter. Here's chapter two! :3

It’s been a slow day at the café, just two of them in there with Niki doing the vast majority of the work. But even a slow day could not be entirely peaceful with Niki Lauda behind the counter.

“Lauda, that’s the fifth complaint today,” his sort of boss, really just supervisor Clay says.

Clay’s a good enough guy. He likes to think that he’s the best in the shop, because he’s been doing this the longest. Looks after the place for Enzo and tries to keep all his college student employees in order. Clay’s been at this game far too long, too old at this point to even be a graduate student, but with a pair of fake think-framed glasses and a fashion sense that probably would have been fashionable in the 70s, he fits in with the indie crowd that a place like theirs tries to bring in.

He had spent the last twenty minutes listening to a girl with far too many piercings and a Black Sabbath t-shirt who had the misfortune of crossing Niki on one of his bad days. Which to be fair, most of his days were bad days, but he had been forced to endure a call from his father this morning, so Niki had every reason to have a low tolerance for dealing with idiots.

Not that Niki is particularly willing to offer up that particular piece of information.  

“In my defense,” Niki starts his explanation, “her drink was flawless. It's not my fault that she had to be talking on her phone the entire time.”

“And yet, that was still no reason to take the phone from her and snap it shut.”

“You know the real question you should be asking here, is who in this day and age uses a flip phone. It’s a travesty.”

“It’s vintage,” Clay offers.

“It is outdated and trashy and frankly she deserved it.”

“I really should fire you,” he says with a frustrated sigh, bringing a hand up to rub at his temples, which only goes to show just how done with all of this he is.

Niki snorts at the very notion. This wasn’t the first time that Clay had made the threat, and just like every time before it wasn’t like he would actually act upon it.

“You won’t. I’m the better than all of the other employees. _My_ drinks are the reason people keeping coming back,” Niki says his voice ringing true with the pride over his work.

The problem is, that Niki knows he’s good at making drinks, far better than his coworkers. He has secret tweaks to the recipe which is the reason so many people come back, more often than not they even go so far as to request that he makes the drink when there are multiple barista’s working.

“And your customer service skills are the reason people leave and never return.”

“Then they’re not the type of customers we want,” he insists, anybody who couldn’t take Niki’s frank attitude simply wasn’t worth his time. It was a philosophy that had worked for him for years, and he saw very little reason to change it now.

“Not the type of,” Clay starts before shaking his head angrily, “You’re an arrogant little shit you know that. I hired you thinking ‘hell he makes good coffee, maybe he will grow on me,’ but you don’t grow on people, not in a good way.”

“If you fire me, twenty other places would hire me within an hour,” Niki cut in quickly before Clay could say anything worse, because there’s truth in that that Niki doesn’t want to admit and the quicker he can turn away from that particular point the easier it will be to crush the seed of doubt down before it grows.

He doesn’t need friends.

“Have fun working at Starbucks then,” Clay remarks, the hint of a smirk twitching up that stupid mustache of his.  

There was no way he was getting a job at a Starbucks.

No way in hell.

They were the corporate evil, all big marketing schemes and overpriced drinks.

He refused to don their green apron of shame.

Niki would rather be unemployed than work for a Starbucks, which wasn’t a particularly pleasing thought, but his pride would not allow him to stoop so low as to work for a place that charged people for soy milk and didn’t even have fair trade coffee beans.

“I just don’t understand why I have to play nice if they’re idiots. What should matter is the quality of the drink not how friendly the barista is!”

Rather than getting another angry response back Clay just lets out an annoyed sigh before tossing his hands up in frustration. “This is like arguing with a brick wall,” he remarks, “one more complaint today and you’re fired. End of story.”

This is a joke.

This has to be a joke. There is no way that he could actually be serious about this.

Except he totally is. As serious as a heart attack or people who wore argyle sweatervests.

Well, fine then.

 Niki can pretend to play nice, after all, it is just for the day, just while Clay’s watching. The next customer would just get the full force of his charm and that would be it, tomorrow he could go back to his sufficiently bored with life and generally snarky self.

At least, that had been his plan, but the day was slow enough as it was. Sunday’s weren’t particularly exciting by any accord; there wasn’t even the buzz of people coming in and out from classes, which normally helped to stimulate their business.

Which meant he had some down time that he spent angrily typing away on his iPhone, putting a rather eloquent rant up on his blog about how flip phones were what was really causing global warming, before shooting a text up the only person that he vaguely considered his friend, ranting about how their work place had apparently turned into a totalitarian regime when he wasn’t looking.

Marlene’s response back to him was a series of frowny face emojis which did nothing to alleviate his frustrations.

Niki had been in the middle of typing back a text back to her explaining for the nth time that emojis did not, in fact, solve every problem as she so seemed to think that they did. That is why for the briefest moment, he misses the sound of the door opening, and only manages to tear his eyes away from his phone when the service bell back the cash register dings.

Though when he did look up the face staring back at him was not somebody that Niki had ever expected to glimpse again

See, Niki doesn’t particularly make an effort to memorize the people who came into the café.

Rather, he did exactly the opposite. Really it shouldn’t have been that hard to do so, they are off the beaten track enough that even for being in a college town their café was hardly booming. In fact, if anything Niki actually prefers it this way. The less people that he had to actually deal with the better, and the less likely they were to get the crazy partiers sweeping in here buying the cheapest drink imaginable that way they could mooch off their bathroom, or sorority girls coming in with the yoga pants and those moronic faux-jersey things that had become a fad as of late, chatting with their friends at a decibel that shouldn’t even be allowed on this planet.

There was something so incredible, and peaceful about their café, that when somebody bothered to disrupt that peace Niki was acutely aware of it. This was why he supposed this one particular encounter stood out so clearly in his mind’s eye, at least that was his reasoning for it. Somebody who had looked so out of place in the cool atmosphere surely would stick on in his thoughts.

And yet, at the same time, somebody who hadn’t grumbled when Niki delivered his usual sass at them, but rather returned it in tenfold.

He most certainly remembers this one.

And from the looks of it, this particular customer remembers him as well.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he smirks.

“Yes,” Niki replies, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “it’s not like I work here or anything.”

There’s a cough behind him, more like somebody clearing their throat reminding him of the eyes watching his every move making sure that he behaves himself. It is a bit unnerving, but Niki bites his tongue to keep from saying anything more on the subject.

“No way,” the customer answers with a faux-gasp, “you work here! I never would have guessed!”

Niki barely manages to restrainhis eye roll, but instead leans against the counter, being careful to not get anything on the sleeves of his cardigan. Before nodding his head a bit so that the customer with come down onto his level.

He does so, letting his far too shaggy blond hair fall along the sides of his face like a curtain, framing his face in a way that only party boy’s and surfer dudes could really pull off.

The sort of people that Niki made sure to never normally associate with.

Not that this was changing anything.

Once they’ve met on the same level, Niki makes sure to drop his voice down to a fierce wispier that way he can’t be overheard by anybody other than the guy across from him, “look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but my boss has been heckling me all day, if you could just pretend to play nice with me, I would seriously owe you one.”

He hated owing people things; it went against one of his very basic principles. Yet, he was pretty sure after saving this guy from a particularly bad hangover the other day, he deserved this one thing.

The other guy’s eyes flicker up to look over Niki’s head for a brief moment before lowering back down to meet his eyes, and he can’t help himself from noticing what a piercing shade of blue they eyes that stare back at him are.

“Mr. Porn-Stashe is your boss.”

Niki probably should not find that nearly as funny as he does, a quite snort escaping him at the very notion.

“He looks like a hard ass.”

“He is, sometimes,” Niki replies.

“So should I-“

“Lauda take the guy’s order, already,” the voice from behind him cuts off his conversation and instinctively Niki jumps back.

“I’m getting to it,” Niki snaps back with a bit more force than is really necessary, before turning back to his customer, “and what will it be?”

“My usual,” he answers, as if it is the most natural thing in the world, as if he has been there hundreds of times and actually had a usual order.

In the end, he charges him for a triple shot latte, because if he’s going to be a smart ass about it then that’s what he deserves. Once he clears up the basics of for here or to go, and swipes his credit card, Niki picks up one of the paper cups and pulls the sharpie out of his pocket. Realizing for the first time, that even after their interaction from before, he had somehow failed to actually learn the other guy’s name.

He would have written asshole like before, but actually he wasn’t being entirely bad this time, plus that probably wouldn’t go over very well with his supervisor.

So instead, Niki settled for putting on a vaguely bored look which was better than his usual look of displeasure, but none of that faux-smile bullshit, and asks, “and your name is,” his pen hovering right above the edge of the coffee cup.

“James,” he, James, answers with grin that seems far too wide for a simple introduction.

The name suits him.

Niki nods a bit before leaning forward and writing the name in block letters across the side of the cup, as well as scribbling a ‘ _thanks’_ right above it.

Now comes the matter of what to actually make him. This normally would not be a problem, except he knew nothing about James tastes or preferences, other than the fact that he clearly had a preference towards alcohol, and there was no way that Niki was going to be making him an Irish Coffee, even if he had most certainly googled the recipe after their last little interaction.

Instead he settles for an old favorite, one that has been tried and true, one he knows to be a crowd pleaser. A White Chocolate Mocha, is sure to wow him, assuming that James was a fan of sweet things.

(Which, honestly, who wasn’t a fan of sweet things? That was almost worse than the flip phone.)

When he finishes the drink he places it on the counter, and raises a single eyebrow in James’ direction, “tell me what you think.”

He gets a nod in return, as James moves forward to take the drink from the counter top and try a sip of it. The noise he makes as he drinks it is inhumane, a breathless moan that seemed more fitting for a bedroom than a coffee shop, and almost has him blushing like a school girl all over again, but he has more composure than that and far more class.

“You are a god send,” James says and for a second Niki almost believes that he’s being serious, but he winks at him playfully. Enough to remind him that this is just a favor between two strangers, nothing more.

He’ll probably never see him again, that’s what Niki tries to tell himself, though his traitorous mind seems to hope for the exact opposite.

There’s something about James that fascinates him and irks him at the same time. It’s a complicated feeling to have for somebody that he’s barely met.

It’s only once he’s left that Clay actually has anything to say about his service, moving forward to grab Niki’s shoulder in what’s supposes to be a friendly matter, but actually has the smaller of the two of them flinching away from the grasp. He’s not too big on the whole human contact thing.

“Lauda, next time treat the other customers like you treat your boyfriend and I won’t have to fire you,” Clay says giving him an awkward shoulder squeeze, before turning back towards where the break room is.

It takes Niki a moment to process what he meant, before he hastily speaks up, just in time to catch Clay before he disappears into the back.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Niki insists, because really he’s not, “We just met the other day.”

“Right, and I’m the Queen of England.” 


	3. Caramel Macchiato

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh guys, I just wanted to thank laurazel/00silvad for [this](http://00silvad.tumblr.com/post/66038001516/hipster-niki-from-the-amazing-coffee-shop-au-by) ah-maze-ing art of my fic!!  
> I'm so glad some you all are enjoying the fic :3 
> 
> Also I apologize in advance for any characters other than the main guys who are ooc, I'm really just using people's names and appearances that way I don't have to make ocs. >.

He’s at some party with the music blaring, bass thumping through his bones, there’s a pretty coed in holding on his arm desperately as she tries to stay up right on her too high heels, and a game of beer pong in front of him. He lets the ping-pong ball in his hand fly landing in the second to last glass on the table, as a cheer erupts from the group around him. A usual night in the life of James Hunt. Barely eight in the evening, a kickback that had turned into something else.

Nearly an hour later he finds himself out in the cool air of the coastal town. He’s not wearing a jacket, so the cold is a bit startling, and James shoves his hands into his pocket. His brain moving a bit sluggish in comparison to his body, but eventually it catches up with himself. Slightly confused over why they left the part, but the guys are saying something about going back to one of their places, Alex Hesketh’s, to pick up some more drinks, or something like that.

It’s all a bit fuzzy at the moment.

“Dudes, guys, fuck, stop,” James says trying to regain his balance a bit, which isn’t an entirely successful process. Maybe he has had a bit too much to drink. Except at that moment none of that matters, because James reaches a moment of clarity when he realizes he’s standing across the street from the entrance to an all too familiar coffee shop.

“What is it James,” one of the guys, Anthony, asks, turning around to give him a rather quizzical look.

“Remember when I was telling you about the greatest coffee that I ever had,” James says excitement leaking into his voice.

“Vaguely.”

“Wait, is this the one with the cute barista chick you were pining over, Niki or something yeah,” Hesketh asks.

“Fuck you,” he says with a laugh, “but yeah!”

He supposes that he may have mentioned him once or twice, or maybe more than that, he tended to lose track of what he was saying when he had had a bit too much to drink. Then again, who doesn’t? And honestly, James could see how they would have assumed that he was talking about a girl, because well, James did that a lot. It wasn’t like he was completely straight or anything; just girl’s tended to be easier. His general standards went about as far as ‘does it have a pulse’.

Still, somehow he manages to wrangle the guys into coming in with him, probably the fact that he insisted he would pay for their drinks, and even though James doesn’t exactly have an endless flow of money, far from it actually, he’s not about to miss this opportunity.

He opens the door a bit too quickly and it slammed against the paper racks beside it jostling the contents and dragging every set of eyes in the café to lock onto where they stand. “Sorry,” James offers with a grin, as most of the students who were there trying to study turn back to their work.

Though there is still one set of eyes on him, framed this time by a set of glasses which probably aren’t even prescription lenses, that seems to be the fashionable thing to do nowadays, since when had bad vision become so popular. It is only when James looks up to meet those eyes that they hurriedly pan downwards to the cash register that he’s poking around with.

James slides up to the counter, intending to give a cheerful greeting, the sort that he likes to pretend he doesn’t practice in front of a bathroom mirror.

However, before he can manage that much, Hesketh behind him with a low whistle, and says, “that’s not a girl,” James has a rather hard time resisting the urge to turn around and hit him, not exactly the easiest urge to resist.

“Did you expect me to be a girl,” Niki practically hisses out the words, pressing the buttons on the cash register with a bit more force that was probably necessary, before making a sort of disgruntled sigh, “if you’re looking for Marlene, she works this Thursday.”

“Just ignore him,” James insists, cutting Hesketh off before he can say anything else and make matters worse.

Niki just shrugs his shoulders in return.

Once again he is cut off, this time by Anthony, before he can speak again, this seems to be some sort of running joke, or maybe the guy’s just like to be complete and utter cockblocks, he’s not entirely sure, , “James here had spent the last few days telling us about god’s gift to coffee.”

“That’s not how it was, at all,” James insists.

“He pinned.”

“Oi, Fuck you,” James says flipping the bird over his shoulder in the general direction of his friend, before turning his focus back to Niki and smiling on of his billion dollar smiles, the type that usually gets people to go along with whatever it is that he is saying, “like I said before, they’re both being idiots, don’t listen to them.”

“Unlike you,” Niki quips back.

James laughs at that, reaching over the counter to pat Niki on the shoulder, “look at you, having a sense of humor, who knew?”

 “Were you going to order,” Niki asks curtly.

James makes a sort of ‘oh’ face and his friends snicker behind him.

“My usual and whatever they want,” James says with a grin, and then steps aside to let the guys order while he reaches into his pocket for a crumpled up ten that he’s relatively certain he shoved in there earlier. James makes a noise of success when he finds it, ignores the eyeroll from Niki, and slaps the crumpled bill down onto the table, “keep the change.”

Niki grabs the change off the table with the tips of his fingers, as if the bill had personally offended him, which could hardly be the case.  

“Do you make a habit of getting thoroughly drunk every Tuesday night,” he asks in a slightly condescending, yet conversational tone.

Which it seems hardly fair for him to make such a general assumption, after them only having met twice before this? Then again, the first time he had stumbled in here had been hung over on a Wednesday morning.

“I’m not drunk,” James tries to insist.

Niki just raises an eyebrow his disbelief clear as he takes a sharpie to their coffee cups writing the names and orders on them.

“Haven’t you ever heard of Tipsy Tuesday,” James asks.

“Tipsy Tuesday?”

James makes a noncommittal noise of agreement before continuing, “Tipsy Tuesday. Wasted Wednesday. Thirty Thursday. Fucked Up Friday. Saturday, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he echoes sarcastically.

“and Sunday Fun-day,” James finishes with a wave of his hands.

“What about Monday?”

James leans against the counter at that question, putting on his best overdramatic zombie-like face and dropping his voice down an octave so it sounded gravely, before answering with a groan, “ughh, Monday.”

There’s something there. It’s not a laugh or a smile, because James is ninety percent sure that Niki is incapable of smiling, but there is the littlest twitch at the corner of his lips, before he turns away back to the coffee machine.

He feels oddly successful for a moment.

His gaze settles on Niki’s back as the other guy clearly tries to focus on making drinks rather than his customer.

Niki wasn’t wearing a cardigan this time, but still had that incredibly pretentious look to him, with grey skinnies and a jumper with some god awful print to it, that vaguely resembled the curtains his mother used to keep in their sitting room back home. Still, there was something oddly interesting about the how look, or maybe James was just being hypnotized by the sweet smell of whatever it was he was mixing up.

“Caramel,” James says once he succeeds in recognizing the smell.

“Pardon,” Niki asks, his shoulders tensing slightly underneath the fabric of the wool jumper.

“Does my usual have caramel in it today?”

“Stop guessing before you try it, ruins all the fun,” Niki answers still not turning away from the machines to actually look at James, “you really shouldn’t harass the person making your drink.”

“I trust you,” James says far too quickly, to be safe, “plus I’m not harassing you.”

“Yes you are,” Niki insists, “speaking of harassing go make your frat bros leave my customers alone.”

James turns over his shoulder to see what Niki is talking about and there he can see the guys having found themselves a table next to some hipster looking girl that they’re apparently trying to woo over and invite to a TG or something. He can’t tell whether she seems interested or not, since she has this perpetually bored expression on her face, but he sort of nods his head before going over there to try and get the guys out of her hair.

Later he wonders how it was that Niki even noticed that, he must have eyes in the back of his head or something.

Soon enough he’s shoved off on his way, with a warning at his back for him and his friends to stop harassing people with a warm cup in his hands. He ends up being right about the caramel and counts it as his second success of the day.

  


	4. Pumpkin Spice Latte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you say “Pumpkin Spice Latte” 3 times in front of a mirror a white girl in yoga pants will appear and tell you her favorite things about Fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off I would like to thank: [theblondemermaid](http://theblondemermaid.tumblr.com/), [moonsstars](http://moonsstars.tumblr.com/), and [taz-eichel](http://taz-eichel.tumblr.com/) for letting me ramble my feels to them as I tried to get this chapter in order, and then proceeded to take it in a nearly completely different direction. Thank you for all of your help!!

If you asked any random girl or guy, as Niki was prejudiced in general not sexist, what their favorite thing about fall was. Nine out of ten would answer in a chipper voice the one thing that was by far Niki’s _least_ favorite thing about fall.

The dreaded and ever awful, Pumpkin Spice Latte.

They were no Starbucks, but no matter how many times Niki had tried to remind Clay and even Enzo on occasion of this very critical fact, they still fell into the corporate marketing scheme that was best known as the Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Literally, there were commercials for this thing.

Commercials, for a latte.

Not their commercials necessarily, but Starbucks or McDonalds or other mainstream places that Niki avoided like the plague advertising the same drink.

It was a crime that in Niki’s opinion should have been punishable by death or social suicide, because he felt like a small part of him was dying every time he had been requested to make one.

The evils of capitalism being trust into his face through the entirety of fall.

In order to make things more fall themed around here, a display had been set up over the past few days, showcasing their special seasonal drink and making the place significantly more orange than it was the rest of the year. And no matter how many times people tried to assure him that orange was festive and thus very much _in fashion_ , Niki had to disagree that there was a certain level when the color became too much for him to bear.

The themed sweater isn’t even part of the uniform, but it had been hiding in the back of his closet long enough that Niki had felt it necessary to let the thing see the light of day at least once a year.

“Can I get a venti pumpkin spice latte,” a familiar voice singsongs at him from the counter.

Niki looks away from the latest display that he had accidently, or purposely depending on your opinion, knocked over and had then proceeded to put back in order out of guilt, to turn his eyes to the person standing at the counter.

She had somehow managed to enter the shop without him noticing, but now leans against the counter so that the overhead lighting glints off the variety of piercings along her earlobes. Her dark hair is pulled back into her usual messy bun and the blazer she has thrown over her romper most certainly is the one that he had spent a good few hours looking for the week before.

“What the hell are you doing here,” he asks bluntly, “you don’t work today.”

“Can’t I come visit my favorite coffee shop and my second favorite barista on my day off?”

“No,” he deadpans.

“Niki,” she says giving him a slightly cross look, though he knows it’s all an act the second he sees it.

“Marlene,” he responds, mimicking the expression for a moment, before remember that one of them has to be a self-respecting adult and assuming his normal nonchalant look that he most certain did not spend hours practicing in front of a mirror.

“Are you going to make my order or am I going to have find another coffee shop,” she says firmly, as if she really would leave. Then again, this is Marlene, he knows if he pushes too much she likely would and wouldn’t have any qualms about it.

“We’re not fucking Starbucks.”

“Thank God for that,” she says raising her hands in a fake praise, “but I still want that latte, venti.”

_Venti._

He knows that she is just joking about it, using the silly term in order to get a rise out of him, but one would be surprised how many ignorant college students came into the shop trying to order with their Starbucks vocabulary. He’s been known to be overly snarky when correcting customers, but instead of feeding the fire, he just grabs a large cup.

“Draw hearts on the cup! I want to feel young and in love again,” she demands.

He snorts at that, but complies, resisting the urge to draw something anatomically correct, though that would take far more time and effort than his barely above minimum pay check deems worth the effort, and instead scribbles out two rushed ‘heart’ shapes on either side of her name.

It was a rather slow day, which mean Niki couldn’t actually come up with a good enough reason to get Marlene to leave the counter, not that she would have listened in any case. She was a terribly persistent woman and likely would have elected to go behind the counter had they been busier, working for free if it meant she could pester information out of him.

“So who is he,” Marlene asks once he’s busy working on the order.

For a second the question catches him off guard, but then it all clicks. The real reason she’s here on her off day appears.

Niki should have known.

He initially contemplates pretending he didn’t hear her question, but he knows that will just lead to her repeating it even louder.

Instead, he settles for the next best option; denial.

 “Who’s who?”

“The guy you’ve been day dreaming about.”

Niki is suddenly very glad for the fact that he’s mixing the drinks and not looking at her, because he is not entirely certain that he can trust the expression on his face at that moment.

“How do you know it’s a guy,” he asks a bit annoyed, switching languages quickly before the any of the other customers can eavesdrop on them.

There’s not too many people sitting around, and most have earphones in, but Niki would rather be safe than sorry.

She lets out a little huff, but answers back in German as if nothing had changed at all, “First off, let me congratulate myself for getting you to admit that you’ve been day dreaming about him. Secondly, you’re gay.”

“I’ve been with girls before,” Niki objects on principle.

“You’ve been with me,” Marlene answered punctuating her words with a very aptly timed eye roll, “look I know I took your virginity-“

“Can we not be having this discussion in public?”

“They can’t understand us.”

“One can never be too sure,” Niki answers, turning away from the machine now to look around the coffee shop for signs of anybody understanding what is exchanging between the two of them.

Niki wasn’t sure why this was being brought up in the first place, it wasn’t even that big of a deal, and no matter how much certain other people tried to insist that there was something going on there really wasn’t. Alright, so maybe, there was something going on, but it wasn’t actually a _thing_.

Not like a mix tape and smoking on top of the parking garage sort of thing, more like an annoyance who posed a challenge of sorts, yes, that was what it was, a challenge.  

Niki was good with challenges, they were something he understood. He had never been the sort of person to back down from a challenge, never the sort of person to even consider backing down from a challenge. So, that was how he saw this this thing, whatever it was, the problem was he’d been thinking about it more and more often.

It had officially been three times, but that hardly counted for anything. Niki had had plenty of customers before who had come in with flirty attitudes that were clearly interested in him, but were immediately turned off by his attitude, something that Niki did nothing to curb. It wasn’t his problem if people didn’t like him.

He had no doubt that this guy would be just like the rest.

It tends to be a trend in Niki’s life.

 “So now, before you completely distract me, who is he?”

“Nobody important,” Niki says in a tone that is both an attempt to reassure himself and to convince her.

“Rumor has it he pines.”

Niki sputters a bit, because there is absolutely no way in hell that she should have heard that. “You weren’t even working that day!”

“Clay told me.”

“Son of a bitch.”

The squeal of delight he gets in return is a bit discerning.

“It’s true then!”

He gives a slightly shrug of his shoulders, before handing her the new finished Latte, “he wears bro tanks, you know how I feel about bro tanks.”

Her knowing nod it clear that they both know exactly what he’s talking about.

Bro tanks were the number one sign of the type of people that they spent their lives avoiding.

The Gym Rat Fraternity guys, that spent half their lives drunk and the other half making jokes about lifting and casually referring to people as ‘bro.’ They were the type of people that had picked on kids like him back in grade school, whose music tastes were either top forty bullshit or the so called ‘classic rock,’ and who seemed to think that sandals were acceptable footwear in any weather.

“No doubt, he’s some douche frat bro, who will get bored in a week’s time tops.”

“Are those two mutually exclusive,” Marlene asks, “bro tanks and douchebags that aren’t good enough for you?”

 “In my experience,” he says, his experience being a bit more extensive then he was always willing to share, “yes.”

“You’re insufferable and hopeless.”

“I try,” he said giving her a slightly ribbing smile.

Niki had been about to say something else, but whatever he had been about to say froze up in his throat all at once.

His hands hover in the air from where he had been trying to fix a display and his eyes follow the curve of the open door at the person that stands in it. As much a Niki hated those tank tops, he had to admit that there was a certain allure to them.

Not that he would ever openly admit that.

Their eyes meet for the briefest of moment, before Niki scowls tearing his eyes away. The moment hadn’t passed quickly enough to go completely unnoticed. He was just thankful that this time there was no noise of delight, but rather a raised eyebrow, “that’s him,” she asks in hushed German.

But Niki didn’t trust himself to give any sort of vaguely coherent answer.

Instead, he slips back into English quickly, “Don’t you have a class to get to?”

There’s an exaggerated show of her checking an invisible watch, before giving him a wink and turning away. Except at some point James had approached the counter and Niki is forced to watch as the two rather gracelessly bump into each other, before James steadies them giving Marlene the same smile that he had been giving to Niki the past times when he had come in.

Of course, that would just happen to be his usual smile.

Stupid Niki actually thinking that he saw something more than that.

Niki wasn’t anything special; he was just another random person in the cogs of life. No doubt James was already thinking of a way to get Marlene to come home with him, she was likely more his type anyways.

Being female, and all.

As if things couldn’t get worse, right before leaving she has to say one last thing. After thanking him quickly, Niki is just able to catch her last tidbit of advice telling James that he “really ought to try the Pumpkin Spice Latte.”

He silently vows to make her pay for that later, in the cruelest way possible.

Niki’s still plotting certain people’s eventually demise when the stupid ‘ring for service’ bell on the counter is hit, and he snaps his eyes up at once to meet James’ slightly surprised ones.

“If you order a Pumpkin Spice Latte I will be forced to murder you and dump your body in the lagoon,” Niki grumbles.

“That bad,” he asks, slumping down on the counter top making himself at home and invading Niki’s space as he always does.

“Have I ever mentioned how much I hate fall?”

James has the audacity to laugh at him of all things, “you should see your face right now. It’s,” he starts and then stops himself as if searching for the right word, “very disgruntled.”

“I have every right to be disgruntled,” Niki says stubbornly, “it is the season of yoga pants and holiday themed drinks.”

“So to be clear,” he smirks, “do you hate the drinks because you can’t make them successfully, or because they are too _mainstream._ ”

Niki ignores the jab at his preferences for the obscure and underappreciated and instead latches onto the insult in regards to his coffee making abilities. See making drinks is the one thing that Niki does incredibly well, probably the only thing he did well.

Honestly, if Niki did anything else half as decently he would likely be doing that instead of working for just above the minimum in an off the beaten track coffee shop in a college town for a university that he wasn’t even attending, but that was beyond the point.

He had a reputation to uphold as the best latte mixer in the city if not in the greater area.

“That a challenge, asshole?”

“You bet your ass it is.”

Niki may have hated Pumpkin Spice Lattes, but as he quickly charged James for his usual triple shot, the other guy not even blinking at the price, he knew exactly what he was going to make.

The best damn Pumpkin Spice Latte in the world.

Which meant substituting the regular 2% they used for soy milk and adding an extra pinch of cinnamon to the mixture, along with a few other secretes that Niki had picked up along the way. He wasn’t the best barista they had for nothing.

Niki was so focused on making the drink that he hadn’t even considered making small talk with James.

Niki wasn’t the type who actively engaged in small talk, normally it was forced upon him by the customers and he would answer with one or two word answers, but he had been making an exception lately.

Something that he would probably come to regret later.

He finishes the drink soon enough and when he turns around he finds James staring at him, not the first time that he’s caught him either. “Don’t you have a phone to nervously check or something better to do then watching me while I work?”

“And miss the show,” James says, his voice booming over the cool atmosphere of the café, “not on my life.”

“Well,” Niki says holding the latte out to him, and most certainly not freezing up for even the briefest moment when their fingers graze against each other as James takes the drink from him.

He finally tears his gaze away from Niki to focus on the drink, taking a long drink of it, his eyes then closing long eyelashes that he doesn’t even have a proper need for brushing against his cheek bones. The noise that James makes has to certainly rival the one that he played up when Clay had been watching before. Niki would almost be certain that it was an act again, if not for the genuine look of appreciation in his eyes when he finally does open them.

“You have to teach me your ways,” he insists.

 “Why? So you can steal my job away from me?”

“That depends, are you guys hiring,” James asks in an almost serious tone, but there’s no way he could be serious about that. Somebody like James would only make a mess of a place like this; he didn’t fit the ambiance at all.

Too much gym and Jack Daniels, not enough music festivals and vintage cameras.

“Not for the likes of you,” Niki says, giving James a once over that is to make his disapproval clear, not to check him out, not at all.

“What a shame,” James replies, that stupid smile back on his face, “would have given me more opportunities to admire the view.”

“I could report you for sexual harassment,” Niki says, not meaning it in the slightest.

“You’d lose the only customer that actually likes you,” James says, but there’s something to his tone that Niki can’t decipher, like he wants to say something more.

“I don’t need customers to like me.”

“Suit yourself,” James shrugs, before taking one more drink of his latte, “at least, you can do something right.”

It’s only by time he’s turned towards the door that Niki realizes he never responded, but ends up muttering curses in German as he goes back to fixing the stupid fall display and purposely tries to put the weird feeling that had been growing inside of him since James had entered the door as far out of his mind as possible, instead focusing on the hate fire burning inside of him known as the Pumpkin Spice Latte. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Questions you should be asking yourself.  
> Where is this story set?  
> Neither of these characters are American, but your poor author's knowledge of music festivals and holiday drinks only stretches as far as a bald eagle's wingspan.  
> //forgive me?


	5. Triple Shot of Espresso

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates in the same day. I know crazy right.  
> I was going to save this for tomorrow, but I couldn't help myself.

James had been having a rough day to say the very least of things.

It wasn’t even evening yet, and while his phone had already blown up with text messages from Antony and Alex insisting that there was a killer party at the Sigma Pi house that he _had_  to stop by later, and that that would surely help to pull him out of whatever funk he had been in lately. Which meant if all went well James would be able to crash over at their place after the party had died down.

Still, that was currently hours off.

This left James with a wonderful window of time in which he knew another thing that he could do that would surely help to raise him out of his funk, or if nothing else give him a boost of caffeine to get him through the rest of the day.

The only problem was that when James entered the coffee shop the person standing behind the counter was not a displeased barista with a slight overbite, but rather the young woman from the other day who had hearts on her cup and had insisted that he tried the pumpkin spice latte.

She dressed in a similar style to how Niki did and wore the apron that the barista’s all seemed to wear with her name stitched into it.

Which weeks ago had he came into this coffee shop and had been greeted with that sight this probably would have been a much different story.

 He would have leaned across the counter and flirted at her, get her to blush and somehow convince her to invite him into the backroom or back to her place for a quick fuck. However, things had changed, without James really even realizing it. So much so that the only thing that really phased him about the fact that there was a pretty girl behind that counter was that that meant Niki wasn’t there.

Also there was the slightly silly reminder of a thought that he had had before, when he had walked in to see Niki working two days before smiling at this very woman before turning to scowl at him, but he had tried not to put too much thought into that particular matter until he had all of the details.

(Plus James was pretty sure he could steal Niki away from her if it really came to that, wouldn’t be the first time he had played the role of a home wrecker.)

“Niki’s not here,” she states the obvious once he approaches the counter, “but if you don’t mind a change of barista, I could still whip you up something.”

“Uh, sure,” James starts about to ask for his regular, before realizing that his regular order was more of a joke between him and Niki, and James had not actually had to pick his own drink in what felt like an entirety, but was really just a few weeks.

For the first time since his very first encounter with the coffee shop he lookes up at the menu board that hung over the barista’s head. A variety of drinks are labeled out, with special markings next to them and comments like “eco-safe” or “fair trade.” There were a few more interesting things on the menu such as a drink called a Latte Bomb, though the title had an asterisk symbol next to it and written in a familiar hand writing is a message informing whosoever reads the board there was only one person who could make the drink. In fact, now that he was really noticing it, there were little marks like that all over the display, where somebody must have come in after the fact with chalk and amended the orders with information regarding which baristas were and were not qualified to make the drinks.

A vast majority of them have the same mark, which if they key on the side was to be believed means that only Niki was capable of making them.

The thought makes James smirk.

There were also an equal number of notations insisting that somebody named Clay was only good at cold drinks, though it looked as if somebody had attempted to rub away those markings.

As well as a small rant in the margins of the sign that was supposed to be advertising their special fall drinks. That make James remember his last encounter with Niki and the dreaded Pumpkin Spice Latte.

“Having a hard time picking,” Marlene offers, bringing James’ attention back to her at once and out of his thoughts.

“No, I’m all set,” he says quickly, “I’ll take a triple shot.”

He supposes once he might as well actually try the thing that he keep getting charged for without actually even receiving. Plus he could really use the extra boost of caffeine.

“Name,” she asked, once she had grabbed the cup.

“James.”

“James,” she repeated with a small hum to her voice, an almost singsong hum, writing something quickly on the cup before tucking the sharpie behind her ear.

There is a quick exchange of money and change, and once she has moved to work with the machine, James speaks up, “I thought Niki normally worked on Fridays-“

“He does,” she answers with a slightly annoyed huff, “I’m covering for him.”

“Is he sick or something?”

“Or something,” Marlene replies in an exceedingly cryptic, a potentially bitter, tone, “he’s just lucky I like him.”

“That a rarity?”

He watches as she struggles with the machine for a moment, not answering his question or paying him any mind, but rather focused on turning the knobs and getting things right. Eventually she finished making a vaguely successful noise and returning where he was to give him the drink.

“This may sound like a stupid question,” James starts, once he’s accepted the drink.

“It probably is.” She’s blunt; he supposes that’s probably what Niki sees in her.

“But are you two,” James starts.

He is greeted with a light airy laugh before he can even finish.

“No,” she said finally when her laughter had quieted.

“I just assumed, because he smiled at you and your cup.”

“We dated once,” she admits the laughter clearly still in her voice, “back when he was pretending to be interested in girls, and I was pretending to like guys that drove fast.”

“What happened?”

“My car broke down just off the sixty-five,” she shrugs, “you’ll never guess who was more successful at the whole ‘show some skin and get people to give us a ride’ gig.”

Except with the way she winked at him James could already see it now.

The mental image was, well, it was actually pretty hilarious.

Niki standing on the side of the road like a hitchhiker.

(James had been in that position once, but it wasn’t the most glamorous of memories.)

“Well, on that note,” James gives a sort of half-hearted wave before heading to the exit of the coffee shop.

“You’re welcome, by the way,” she calls at his retreating back.

James had assumed she had meant for the drink or maybe the information about the fact that Niki was not with her, but he hadn’t really realized what she meant. Not until he had gotten a good look at his cup, rather than his name being written on the cup or Niki’s nickname for him, there was in its place a ten digit phone number.

Without giving it a second thought James pulled out his cell phone, balancing the cup of coffee precariously in his hand and typing the number into his contacts.

_Did you seriously write your phone number on a coffee cup?_

James sent the text before he could regret it, assuming that she must have thought his question from before one was of expressing interest in her. Then again, she would have to have written the number before that, because he had his cup by then.

His answer came back quick enough, his phone lighting up as a new text came in.

_Who is this?_

Apparently, not her.

 _James Hunt._ He types back curiously, and _you?_

Rather than getting an answer to the question – even though James has an excited hunch that he knew exactly whose the number was. He gets a typed curse instead.

James will most certainly have to thank her later.

 _How did you get this number?_ The other person asks, but the text sent mere seconds later shows that he must have figured it out; _Shit,_ _Marlene’s working today._

 _That she is_ , James types back.

He snickers a bit to himself before giving into the temptation and typing: _missed you today ): this coffee’s shit._

Which wasn’t entirely true…

 It was a perfectly alright drink, but James had been getting pampered lately when it came to his caffeinated beverages.

 _Of course it is._ Niki types back and James can almost hear the smugness in his voice, _I didn’t make it._


	6. Iced Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> under-base made some lovely art for this my fic! check it out [here](http://under-base.tumblr.com/post/66478505589/i-keep-forgetting-that-i-drew-this-after-reading)!  
> seriously, all you amazing art people are going to kill me, as are all of you giving feedback! you are my lifeblood!

The first thing Niki had done after his initial shock of who was texting him and the worry that maybe he had dreaming or hallucinating, the dangers of second hand smoke all too real, was send of a very scathing text about who should and should not be given his personal cell phone number. The second text he sent to said person was the closest thing that Niki Lauda would ever give to a ‘thank you.’

While he will never admit it, no way in hell, is Niki actually sort of thankful for his overly nosy coworkers, not at all.

However, this might have led to his phone going off more often than usual, and a series of drunken texts that were practically illegible the night before, and while he had played it off that he was very irked about having received them, he actually hadn’t minded too much.

Though these are things that Niki will never fess up to, not even under torture.

Another thing he will never admit was that he had spent the last couple hours checking at his phone hoping for a text from a certain someone, because the only people who stared longingly at their phone waiting for text messages were prepubescent teenage girls who were texting their crushes.

And Niki is most certainly not a prepubescent girl, at least, not last time he had checked.

Still, if he had finally given up glaring at it on the counter top and turned it on vibrate before angrily shoving it into his pants pocket, then it probably had something to do with the fact that it was a completely boring day at work, not that he was waiting for a text.

Plus it is actually a very boring day.

An incredibly boring day.

The heat likely had something to do with that.

It is an unbearably hot day for the fall, particularly so in the coffee shop since about a year ago Enzo had decided that they lived in a place with ‘perfect weather’ and thus locked the café’s air conditioner’s controls down so that only select people who had been gifted with the passcode could actually operate them. Niki is not one of those people, for reasons that were hardly even fair and not at all his fault.

He just likes wearing sweaters and cardigans and flannels and holy fuck how did people survive in this heat.

Sometimes he can be a delicate little flower.

At first Niki had tried to make due, sticking out the heat, being unbearably stubborn about it, as per his usual.

Then he had gotten desperate enough to text Clay and ask (more like beg) for the passcode to the air conditioner’s controls. He even offered up his tickets to the Bastille concert, but was quickly informed that it was “new wave alternative bullshit” and that he “deserved to suffer.”

That fucker.

Niki had finally ended up giving in and shucking off his cardigan, frustrated he had tossed it haphazardly into the backroom where he would likely never find it again.

At least not until Enzo swings by to check on the shop and forces somebody to clean up the backroom.

That or if Marlene finds it and claims it as her own, which is something she is practically fond of doing. He’s lost a good deal of clothing that way, one of the significant downsides of being the same size as the closest thing he had to a friend.

Either way the cardigan was as good as lost.

He was making due with just a crimson v-neck, still the heat felt stifling and Niki really just wants to run his head under the cold tap, but that’s completely undignified and he is nothing if not dignified. 

At least, Niki likes to think that he is.

Though as his phone vibrated in the pocket of his skinny jeans, the noise he made might have been anything but dignified, thankfully nobody was actually around to hear it, since even their usual customers hadn’t stayed when they realized that the heat was killer, likely retreating to a library or something where there was proper AC.

He fishes the phone out of his pocket almost expecting it to be a snapchat from Marlene or a stupid facebook notification or something equally unimportant.

However, the name of the screen that blinks back at him may make just the tiniest hint of a smile, but nobody is around to see it, so Niki can deny it to his dying day.

He clicks open the message that simply reads: _you working today?_

Niki’s fingers flash across the screen of his iphone far too quickly insisting that yes he very much was.

_awesome_ , is James’ reply, _coming over._

Niki types back a very eloquent ‘ _K’._

It physically hurts him to do so, but he’s been trying to be more casual lately. It’s an attempt.

Nearly a minute later his phone goes off again, though this time Niki has moved it to the counter, so the vibrating sound is even louder, echoing in the empty coffee shop where only the sound of so called ‘new-wave bullshit’ plays and giving the barista time to move over to it.

He picks up the phone, another text from James.

_fuck niki, do you guys have one of those no shirt, no shoes, no service policies?_

He started at his phone unsure if he was reading that right, and not sure if he was entirely okay with the image that floated to the forefront of his mind.

It was a very nice image in any case.

_Most places do_ , he types back.

_make an exception for me, i won’t tell._

And fuck, Niki really wants to, but instead he quickly types back, _Rules are rules, Hunt,_ because he’s a stubborn asshole down to his very core.

He doesn’t get a reply back, and for the next ten minutes Niki deliberates whether his text had scared James off or something, or if he is too peeved and now wouldn’t show up at all. Though James doesn’t seem like the type to be discouraged so easily.

His thoughts are proven true a few minutes later, though what seems like an eternity later for somebody who keeps actively watching the door, as the door finally opens to reveal a barely clothed James Hunt.

James has got a short sleeved plaid shirt that’s unbuttoned, showing off the expanse of his chest and hardly counting for a shirt at all, though Niki looks down noticing that James has somehow managed the concept of actually wearing shoes, his threadbare sandals hardly counting, but all the same, they exist.

He has half the mind to refuse him service, but that would mean James leaving and Niki sort of needs this shift to go by faster, lest he actually die of boredom.

“You’re missing something,” Niki says dryly from his place behind the counter.

“Well, some rules are made to be broken,” James answers with a grin, before obviously looking around the place and realizing just how empty it is, “did somebody die or find a rat in their tea.”

Niki rolls his eyes, “lovely weather we’re having.”

“I know right,” James drawls, “all that winter is coming nonsense, and it ends up being hot as, well me.”

He’s arrogant and stupid, and reeks of that sort of charm that wins sorority girls over.

Another think Niki is most definitely not.

Still, Niki makes a vague noise of agreement.

“The usual,” James says like he’s ordering, but it comes off almost like a question.

His usual is a Niki Lauda exclusive creation, charged as a triple shot.

“It’s too fucking hot,” Niki grunts.

“I know I am,” James replies smugly.

He might let out a little laugh at that one, but it’s completely sarcastic and scathing. Niki doesn’t nearly get paid enough to put up with this bullshit.

“I’m not making you an espresso,” Niki says finally, crossing his arms over the front of his work apron.

“You know, you never actually make me one, I had to get-”

“But I am charging you for one,” Niki cuts in, holding out his hand expectantly for the cash, but this time is greeted with a credit card. He shrugs his shoulders at that, sliding the card through the old cash register, before handing it back to James.

“How much of a boost do you really need,” Niki asks, faux-casual as he grabs one of the to-go cold cups. He hesitates for a brief moment, over which cup to grab and almost wants to offer that James stuck around the shop if he has nothing better to do, since Niki was bored out of his mind here before James had arrived, but that would involve admitting his loneliness, and Niki is quite unwilling to do that.

James seems to struggle with the question a bit, and Niki takes the mean time to write out his usual nickname for the other guy onto the side of the cup, “a lot, yeah.”

Niki nods his head once, before loading the cup up with ice and turning it to brew the coffee. It’s a summertime classic, but on hot fall days like this he can still certainly see the merit in such a drink.

The thing is an Iced Coffee takes hardly any time at all, which means he can let the machine take control and instead focus his attention on James who is currently poking around the counter top at the variety of fliers that had been taped to the surface by local organizations. There’s the one advertising the upcoming showing of Rocky Horror and another for an improv group posted side by side with an advertisement for the local co-op. Though from this angle Niki couldn’t tell which one in particular James was looking at even if he wanted to.

The machine makes a little ding dong noise went it finishes, which sounds at odds with the soothing voices of Bastille which are coming over the café’s surround system, a playlist that he had put on purely because of certain people’s texts earlier.

As he clicks the top onto the cup and grabs a straw Niki goes against his every basic principle and actually initiated a conversation with a customer for once, “I’m actually surprised to see you in here and shockingly sober,” Niki says trying for offhand.

James raises an eyebrow at him taking the cup when offered, “what makes you think I’m sober?”

“You’re texts were surprisingly literate.”

“I, oh,” he starts, realization dawning on him, “that doesn’t mean anything.”

“As opposed to last night,” Niki smirks.

“Well shit, you know how it is,” James laughs taking a drink of the iced coffee and making an appreciative hum, “work all day party all night. The struggle.”

“Right,” he answers tightly.

His tone must give something away, because a second later James has set his drink down and is leaning against the counter giving him a knowing look, “no wait, you wouldn’t. Partying is too mainstream, isn’t it?”

“You know what’s really mainstream,” Niki asks, though doesn’t wait for an answer before continuing, “asking if something is mainstream.”

James laughs at that, “the mainstream is too mainstream. Never would have guessed.”

“Well, you’re not the brightest bulb are you?”

“I’m offended,” James says putting his hand up to his chest as if he had been wounded, though his tone was more playful than anything else.

“Poor thing.”

“Though you know,” James starts, “if you ever want to try and join the rest of the world and act like a normal human being.”

Niki scoffs at the very notion, he doesn’t need a party filled with dry humping college students and jungle juice to act like a so-called normal human being.

“Feel free to hit me up, there’s a party happening nearly every night and I have connections,” James continues seeming to not even notice the dry expression on Niki’s face.

“You have connections,” he says warily.

“I do, and you could use some time to lighten up, get that stick finally out of your ass.”

“Oh you would know all about my ass wouldn’t you,” Niki says sarcastically.

He only realizes how bad that sounds after its left his lips, but before he can take it back, the sound of the door opening interrupts Dan Smith’s voice over the speaker system, and Niki freezes as a group of girl’s very vintage music tees enter the coffee shop, essentially ruining whatever moment had been passing between Niki and James.

James seems to come back to himself quicker than Niki does, his hand slapping the counter top with a bit of force before sweeping up his iced coffee, “I should be going anyways.”

Niki makes some lame sort of farewell in reply, turning his attention to the customers that have lined up and not watching as James leaves, not at all.

Only as he is making the drinks for the latest group of customers does he hear one of the girl’s ask her friend in what is a pathetic attempt at a hushed tone, “do you think we interrupted something?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's drink is dedicated to [emy](http://moonsstars.tumblr.com/) who had apparently never heard of an iced coffee before.  
> because apparently they don't have those in italy.
> 
> which begs the question, do the rest of you lovely readers live in places where iced coffee exists, and if not, how do you survive on hot days?


	7. Dirty Chai

“I can’t believe you’re having me facebook stalk this guy for you.”

“You know what I can’t believe,” James hums, “that you have over three thousand facebook friends.”

“I’m something of a local celebrity,” Suzy says, brushing her blonde hair over her shoulder, “so what was his name again.”

“Niki,” James says quickly, slightly frustrated that he’s not the one in charge of the laptop, but this is important enough that he can sit back and watch, for now.

“The only thing I’ve got is Nikki with two kays, and that’s a girl,” she responds after a moment. There’s a frustrated pout on her lips. “Maybe he doesn’t have a facebook? You know, you shouldn’t trust people who don’t have facebooks, he might be a serial killer.”

“Really serial killer, that’s your first thought.”

“It’s highly suspicious,” Suzy affirms, she’s still frowning at her laptop screen, “does he have a last name?”

“Yes,” James answers, because obviously he does.

Who didn't have a last name?

“Great what is it?”

“Well, he has one, doesn’t mean I remember it,” now that he thinks about it James is relatively certain that he heard it before, but he might have been drunk at the time and it definitely didn’t stuck with him. Which was a downright shame, because he needed that piece of information.

“Do you realize how useless you are right now,” she turns around giving him a look of pure disbelief, “I’m trying to help you facebook stalk your little barista boy, and you’re not even being helpful.”

She’s right, he’s not exactly being helpful, but James had never really thought it would be this hard.

He had been caught texting at the last party. After being sort of interrogated about it by his sort of ex-girlfriend, he have given in and admitted that while they had most certainly been acting flirty they had not hooked up (“wow James really, for once you kept it in your pants, incredible”), and that James didn’t exactly know anything personal about him, other than the fact that he liked really terrible indie music and that he wore skinny jeans that left nothing to the imagination and that was perfectly alright.

James doesn’t even know his last name, which is super annoying because he’s sure hours later he will remember it, which in no way helps with the current situation.

“Does he have any friends,” Suzy asks.

Niki doesn’t seem the type to really have friends, but then again, there was the girl from the coffee shop, and if he does have a facebook he at least has to be facebook friends with his coworkers, it’s like an unspoken rule, “there’s a girl, Marlene, I think.”

Her fingers are flying across the keys as soon as the words are out of his lips, “success,” Suzy says, clicking on a the profile of a girl who looks like a spitting image of the barista who gave him Niki’s under, there is also the fact that she lists when she works, which helps in the search.

James leans forward stealing the laptop away, much to the displeasure of his companion and clicking on one of the photos along the side of her timeline. It’s some picture from cochella what looks like years ago, a grass field and crowd in the back ground, where a girl dressed in a boho style skirt with messy bun and a feather headband squeezed next to a guy who looks unhappy to be there (thought that is likely just his face) wearing a shirt with a floral cross on it. The caption alongside the picture reads:  _we were such bbys back then #throwbackthursday #holyshitthatwasthreeyearsago #timeflies #oneofushasRBF #anditsnotme_

“That’s him,” James says jabbing his finger at the picture on the screen.

Suzy steals the computer back from him and a moment later says, “well I’m assuming Niki’s a nickname then,” she nods, “because this is him, yeah?”

This time when she hands the computer back to him the timeline on display is one that he most certainly recognizes, the profile picture look like something done by an aspiring photographer, with Niki caught in a profile view with a cigarette between his fingers.

_How do you get Niki out of Andreas?_ James shoots a text off, his curiously getting the better of him, as he scrolls through the past the last few days’ worth of posts, there’s not much of note there. Though James does notice a post with over three hundred replies that from the ten comments he can see appears to be an argument between Niki and some guy named Clay Regazzoni about “new-wave alternative trash,” but the few comments go completely over James’ head so he skips past that in order to find a series of recently uploaded pictures that show Niki with a vinyl record player. 

Minutes have gone by and Suzy disappeared leaving him the computer to probably go redo her make up for the fifth time that day, but he could care less about that, because Niki hasn’t texted him back.

Normally James gets a reply within minutes, seconds really, even when he had fucked up and drunk texted him, there were scathing remarks all through the night.

Which is why this bothered him so much, “he hasn’t replied.”

“Maybe he’s busy,” Suzy calls from the other room, “or alternatively, disgusted by the fact that you are clearly a stalker and wishing to never speak to you again.”

“I’m sending him a friend request.”

“Did you not hear me about the whole stalker thing,” she asks.

“Actually, I have to go,” James says, quickly stuffing his phone back into his pocket and closing her laptop, “thanks for the help.”

“Yeah yeah,” she calls back to him dismissively.

He doesn't even need to think about where he's going, the path such a familiar one that he walks there on autopilot.

“You never texted me back,” James says by way of greeting, as he pushes open the door to find Niki behind the counter.

“My phone died,” Niki offers lamely.

“His phone was confiscated,” comes a yell from the backroom.

Niki scowls angrily at that, crossing his arms across his chest.

“You’re phone was confiscated,” James repeats amusement clear in his voice.

A second later the back door swings open, and oh hey – it’s Mr. Porn-Stache.

The two nod at each other in some sort of unspoken nod of brotherhood that James is not included in, but he tries to fit himself in all the same.

“His phone was confiscated,” James repeats his voice lifting up at the end making the question clear.

“I figured you two were fighting since he kept scowling at it and refusing to do any actual work.”

“It’s just his face,” James offers, it comes out too quickly almost like an insult, but he doesn’t mean it like that. Niki’s got an interesting face, one that never seems to look at people with any semblance of happiness, but it’s a nice face all the same. James likes looking at it, more than he would like to admit. He had saved some of those facebook pictures to his phone just for the occasion, though he kept his phone under lock so nobody should ever end up finding that out.

“Fuck you,” Niki hisses, “fuck both of you.”

“I didn’t peg you for the threesome type,” James says with a laugh turning to the disgruntled, and possibly embarrassed, barista.

“Just fucking,” Niki starts clearly realizing his mistake again, “ich hasse dich, arschloch,” Niki mutters cussing at him in German when clearly frustrated with English not giving him enough insults to flinch James’ way.

It’s positively adorable.

Their eyes meet for a moment, Niki flustered and grumpy and James’ own eyes bright with amusement, before the shorter of the two turns away quickly and grabs on of the cups, scribbling something on the side of it, that seems far longer than his usual message and far more angrily. Before he turns to go slamming around the coffee machine.

“Well, I’ll leave you kids to sort that out,” Porn-Stache says, hitting his hand on the wall once, before heading back into the backroom.

James giving a laughing thanks at his back, while Niki still seems to be cursing in German.

“Are you really mad at me, because I don’t recall doing anything wrong earlier and-“

“No, it wasn’t you.”

“Do you want to talk about it or something,” James offers.

The shrug of shoulders that Niki gives seems to say ‘fuck you’ more than ‘sure.’ So he lets it drop.

“Then if I didn’t do anything, why are you attacking the coffee machine,” James asks trying to bring the subject back to himself, James was good at talking about himself, it was other people he had issues with, “did it offend you?”

“It’s just his face,” Niki says in some sort of dry pantomime of James’ voice, which sounds completely silly because he already has such a strong accent to begin with that trying to make James only makes it worse.

“I was just stating a fact,” he laughs, “you have resting bitch face, it’s a chronic disorder.  I understand that,” adding the most over exaggerated sympathetic tone that he can, “I respect your inner bitchiness, but some people don’t.”

“I actually hate you.”

James feels like he’s had this conversation before, or maybe just their every conversation seems to go this way. James picking at Niki until he gets handed his drink and is shooed on his way.

That seems to come sooner rather than later, Niki returning to the counter and sliding the to-go cup across the counter to him.

James reaches into his pocket to grab his wallet, before he’s stopped by a hand on his arm, and James is so distracted by the fact that this is probably the first time that Niki has willingly touched him that he almost misses the guy saying, “this one’s on the house.”

He turns the cup around to see where his name would normally be, but this time is says: _mach es dir selber._

“What does that mean,” he asks, but Niki doesn’t bother to give him an answer, not that he really expected an answer ever.

Thank God for Google Translate.

Since he isn’t getting an answer he takes a drink of the cup before him, he recognizes the taste at once. It tastes like fall, but at the same time isn’t the pumpkin flavor that’s become a staple for the season.

“Chai?”

“Dirty chai,” Niki answers, confirming the hint of espresso that James had thought he noticed, “reminded me of you.”

It takes a second before he gets it, but when he does he smiles brightly, and there’s that twitch of a lips again that he is pretty sure if the closest Niki gets to smiling.

“Hey, that reminds me when do you get off,” James asks before he can regret it, his hand gripping tightly to the coffee cup.

“I-“

“What time do you need him,” his boss interrupts them again yelling from the back, still eavesdropping on them apparently.

Well, this can work out to James’ advantage, “Eight?”

“Done,” the other guy says with a nod, before going back into the backroom once more.

“The hell,” Niki raises his voice, his gaze drawing from the doorway to look back at James, “what was that for?”

“I’m going to a kickback tonight and you’re invited,” James says, “once you get your phone back text me, so I can come pick you up.”

“What makes you think I want to go to your stupid kickback,” Niki asks, “I don’t, by the way.”

“But I’ll be there,” he winks.

“I’m not going.”

“Yes you are,” James says smugly, backing out of the door with a wave at the lovely people inside. He knows, or he thinks he knows that he can get Niki to go, and after everything from earlier he’s sort of wanted to get to know him better. More than just texting and facebook stalking, and what better way to get to know somebody that to get them thoroughly trashed.

There’s only one problem with his plan.

Last he had been informed nobody was having a kickback this evening, but that could easily be remedied with a mass text and an offer to drive the getaway van.

_Kickback tonight, 8pm, somebody make it happen. Got booze. I’m seducing a hipster._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: a dirty chai is my usual drink, well a dirty soy chai.  
> now because i'm super curious, if you're gonna leave a review, you should tell me your favorite drink! :3  
> //might end up a future chapter title


	8. Cheap Beer and Cigarettes

This is a bad idea, Niki knows it’s a bad idea, and he spends the rest of his shift grumbling about how he doesn’t want to go, though feeling slightly relieved when Clay gives him back his phone towards the end of shift and there are already a multitude of mixed texts, the vast majority of which are from James, one from early that seems to have been followed second later by a facebook friend request stretching all the way up to the most recent message which is simply an address and a smiling emoji.

“I don’t want to go,” Niki says more to himself than anyone else.

“I’m kicking you out either way.”

“What if I told you I needed the extra pay,” Niki asks, because he is losing two hours of work and that’s twenty dollars that Niki might have needed to eat or something.

“You need a break more than that,” Clay says, in an all knowing tone that leaves no real room for debate, “I’ll lend you some cash if it comes to that, but what you really need is time to enjoy yourself. Live a little, kid.”

“I am living,” Niki insists.

“Right, if nothing else, you can sort out whatever was going on earlier,” he waves at the phone still in Niki’s hand.

That’s right.

He had been indignant and pissed when his phone had gotten stolen away earlier in the day Clay mocking him asking if there was trouble in paradise, and making all sorts of innuendos that had clearly been attempts to fluster Niki.

Though he supposed it was a pleasant distraction from what had actually been bugging him, a certain call that he had received the night before that had knocked Niki pretty much off kilter for the day, though he had really been trying to blow it off like it was nothing.

“Enjoy the night with your boyfriend, I’m taking over from here,” Clay says grabbing Niki’s shoulders and stirring him towards where the backroom is once the evening crowd has died off.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Niki insists for probably the fifth time, not that anybody has elected to actually believe him.

“I don’t understand you sometimes,” Clay starts, “I know you’re not in the closet.”

Niki makes a flustered noise.

“Hey, I was there for the sexually crisis of twenty-ten,” Clay continues, “getting the distressed call from my most recent hire when he decided that he’s not actually into his girlfriend of less than a week.”

“Fuck you.”

“If you weren’t such an ass I might take you up on that offer,” he teases, “that and your boyfriend doesn’t look like the sharing type.”

Niki opens his mouth to try and explain this to him again, that they are certainly not together, that they’ve barely even met, but at this point he’s going out for drinks with him later, to a kickback, which is something Niki _never_ does, and he doesn’t have the patience to try and explain to Clay just how wrong he is about everything.

“You’re delusional,” Niki says, tossing his apron into his locker in the back room and adjusting his blue knit cardigan in the cracked mirror back there.

His eyes make a quick sweep of his appearance, letting the practiced bored expression settle over him. James may have called it resting bitch face, and he’s certain that Marlene has called it that before too, but they don’t understand. Niki, well, he’s never been entirely pleased with his smile, but he’s elected not to give a fuck early on. School his face into a neutral expression that may have led people to assume he was a pretentious ass, which admittedly he was, but they tended to assume these things before they had actually met him anyways based on his facial expressions alone.

He fidgets for a second longer, before turning away from the mirror.

There’s directions in his phone that James had sent him later as well as the address in case he gets lost enough to try and stick it into google maps. The place isn’t far from the coffee shop, maybe a block or two away, so it’s enough to walk there, still he drags his feet the whole way over.

He should probably knock on the door, but the wooden frame seems to be the only thing between him and a bad decision, Niki can hear the music on the other side and he wants to turn back and just forget this whole mess, but he’s already standing there.

It’s now or never.

Leaving now will just feel like failure.

Niki doesn’t end up knocking on the though, he shoots of a text quickly to James letting him know that he was there.

A second later, James opens the door with a grin on his face, “I knew you’d come,” he says, his body sliding against the door frame as if it was the natural thing in the world.

“I elected to humor you,” Niki drawls.

“Sure you did,” he laughs, before repeating, “I knew you’d come,” like it was the greatest realization in the world and reaching out to tug Niki inside.

Inside is well, he should have expected it.

He isn’t necessarily the partying type, but he knows what a kickback entails.

A beer pong table was already set up, some top forty playing over the speaker system and can of cheap beer littering the place.  There’s a group of people that Niki doesn’t know, but he vaguely recognizes two guys pointed out as Anthony and Alex as the drunk frat bros that had come into the café with Niki the one them, and there’s a pretty blonde girl that Niki is almost certain is the student body president, who jokingly calls James a stalker before waving at Niki.

Somebody thrusts a beer can into his hand and the party just sort of moves on without him even realizing it.

And the thing about Niki is, he doesn’t do parties. It’s not necessarily social anxiety or a fear of a crowd of people bumping and grinding to the music, because truthfully Niki can do that. He loves music festivals and concerts and even lets Marlene drag him to raves when she has nobody else to go with her.

Parties though, these small intimate kickback things that are common in college towns, those get to him. They blur the line between strangers and friends.

At a concert he can let lose, singalong to the lyrics, deny it later, and have a good time, because he knows nobody other than whoever he brought with him, so Niki couldn’t give a fuck what they thought about him.

Niki, he can do those.

And it’s not like drinking is the problem. He’s definitely got beer in his fridge and a bottle of wine titled _50 Shades of Grey_ that was bought as a gag gift. He drinks on occasion, when he’s not working and he needs some time to his fucking self.

He just doesn’t prefer to do that in front of a group of people which he vaguely knows and was quickly introduced to on a ‘friend of a friend’ basis or in this case a ‘friend of a customer’ or better yet ‘a friend of a whatever the hell him and James were supposed to be.’ They weren’t friends, that was for sure, because other than having decent tastes in coffee Niki was pretty much certain that they had absolutely nothing in common, and this whole shebang was just proving that point.

Niki had buried himself in a corner on one of the couches as soon as he got there, a can of cheap beer in his hands as he pretended to be watching the various games of beer pong that were played out across the table. While in reality he was really texting Marlene about how this party totally sucked, yet insisting that “ _no it isn’t necessary for you to come kidnap me away.”_

There’s only so much of it that Niki can stand though, and when his can eventually runs dry as he should have expected it to do, he pushes himself up from the couch, content that his vision of the world only moves a little bit.

He hates this.

Somebody notices him getting up, it’s the girl from before, he’s pretty sure her name is Suzy, her eyes flicker up from her phone screen before asking if he’s alright, and Niki’s quick to nod her off, “just need a smoke,” he says quickly, before anybody can question it and slips out the front door.

They’re on the ground floor so he’s out in the open air soon enough. He had really just wanted to get out of there, but he had said he was going to smoke, and so he did. Reaching into his jeans pocket to pull out a cigarette.

The night is cold and for a second he fumbles with his lighter once he’s gotten it out, his fingers slipping over the knob, but it doesn’t seem to matter in any case, because at some point when Niki was trying to figure out how to get this thing going somebody else has shown up offering out their lighter flame already lit like a peace offering.

Niki doesn’t say anything just lights the cigarette before sticking it between his lips and taking a drag off the thing.

He feels better already.

Niki's eyes float up to the sky watching the swirl of smoke between his fingers and staring up into the blank abyss. Some people try to so romantic things about the night sky, the infinity of space, the endless possibilities, calling it the final frontier or some bullshit like that. Niki's no idealist, no philosopher, but there is elegance to the sky that mystifies even him. 

At least, if nothing else, it serves as a distraction against his own traitorous thoughts regarding the guy standing beside him.

"Look Niki," James starts.

Niki knows where this is probably going and he's not ready for that so instead he says, "is your roof flat,” because it’s the first thing that comes to his mind, and it’s a stupidly obvious question.

The question catches James off guard, thankfully interrupting whatever he had been about to declare. Instead his gaze follows where Niki's went.

“Yeah,” he answers, as they both stare up at the roof and the night sky and it feels like it should be a moment, instead it’s fucking stupid, because Niki never makes any sense.

“Why,” James asks, breaking the cool silence between them, his breath coming out as a warm puff against the night air.

“I have this thing,” Niki begins, before shaking his head, “never mind, it’s dumb.”

“I’m sure it’s not.”

“Smoking, its better the higher you are.”

James snorts, and it takes Niki a second before he realizes why. His tone dry as he says, “not like that.”

“Like that wouldn’t hurt,” James smirks ruefully.

“That’s not what I meant. Like I said it’s stu-“

“Let’s do it,” James cuts him off quickly.

Somehow they manage to find the door to the roof. It’s not even locked, though had it been Niki might have had to break out his exceptionally useful lock picking skills. Instead James slams his shoulder into it once, and the door gives it, screeching open to reveal the roof of the apartment complex. They're only three stories up, but it feels a hell of a lot higher as he kicks his foot over the edge, sliding down to take a seat on the edge of the roof his legs dangling down below.

James joins him a second later as if this is the most normal thing in the world. 

And when Niki reaches back into the pocket of his cardigan to pull out his packet of cigarettes he only takes out one, doesn’t offer James one as he lights it up and takes a smooth drag from it. James has a beer can in his hand, but from the way he’s holding it Niki is almost certain that it’s empty.

He lets the smoke out of his lungs, staring for a second at the butt burning between his fingers before holding it out for James to take it. The other guy doesn’t even seem to think about it as he plucks the cigarette out of Niki’s hand and takes a drag of it as well.

For a while they just sit there, letting the smoke surround them and the night sky envelope them, words not being necessary.

“I see why you like it up high,” James says when Niki has the cigarette again, he’s breathing the smoke out attempting to make rings of it.

“It’s peaceful,” Niki says, “you can forget the rest of the world for a moment and just…”

“Yeah.”

He’s not sure who turns first, Niki might have been about to offer him the cigarette again, he’s not sure, because a second later he’s stamping it out against the concrete roof and the stupid streetlights from below and the stars have nothing on this, and they’re staying at each other close enough that if Niki wanted to do something he could. He could lean across the gap between them, and the more he thinks about it the more he wants this to happen. The cheap beer and the shared smoke has nothing to do with it, there’s something else building inside of him, a warmth spreading through his core, and Niki’s eyes flutter shut of their own accord, and he’s leaning forward and-

“James? Fuck. Where the hell did he go?”

It’s somebody down below, one of James’ friends, but whoever it is, their voice is enough to snap Niki back to his senses and he startles back, flinching away from any contact that he might have been about to make. The warmth from before flooding out of his body replaced by cold regret.

And holy shit did that actually almost happen.

Niki’s never been so thankful for an interruption in his life.

James is quicker to come back down from the moment that Niki is and he calls down to his friend, “up top, bro.”

The guy down below thinks that’s the coolest thing ever and is jabbering away quickly, but for some reason Niki can’t even seem to process what’s being said. He’s frozen in his seat, eyes still locked on James, unable to look away, unable to move away.

It is only when James shouts, “I’ll be right down,” to his friend that Niki finally seems to regain some of his sense, and scowls tucking his arms about his side and making to stand up again away from the edge of the roof.

“Sorry,” James begins, but Niki just shakes his head and moves towards the door that will lead them back down below.

 “Actually, I should probably get going anyways,” Niki says once they’re climbing down the stairs, he’s taking them two by two trying to put as much distance between them as possible. “It’s getting late.”

“Not that late,” James says, checking at his phone as if to prove his point, stumbling over the steps as he does so.

“I have to be up early,” Niki lies, because he most certainly doesn’t have work tomorrow morning, that’s one of Clay’s shifts, and for some reason Niki is almost certain that James knows he won’t be working, but Niki can’t explain why.

“Class,” James says, though whether it’s a statement or a question has yet to be determined.

“Yeah,” he answers, because what’s one more lie to add to the pile.

“I could drive you home.”

“You’re drunk,” Niki cuts in sharply.

“I could walk you home,” he offers a bit hesitantly as they reach the bottom level again.

“Look, I’m not some pathetic girl that needs you to hold her hand and walk with her. It’s fucking cold outside and your friends are waiting for you, and I have to get some sleep, because unlike you some of us have real lives and jobs and they can’t spend their entire college career or life or whatever just partying. I have responsibilities, and I don’t need this, distraction or whatever, but you, just,” he makes a frustrated noise, nothing coming out the way he intends for it to, “Fuck, I can walk home on my own. Have a good night.”

He doesn’t want to wait around and see if James has something to say, because coming out tonight was a stupid idea. It wasn’t as if he had wanted to go, he had practically been forced to go by James, and by Clay too, who made him leave work early, and really what did Niki except.

In the back of his head he knew how this evening would end, knew that things wouldn’t go well, but that didn’t stop him from trying to be idealistic about it.

He shoves his hands in the pockets of his cardigan trying to keep the heat in his body. He wished he had drove over here instead of walking, but his car had been back at his apartment since he’d gotten a ride into work this morning and he’d then he’d just walked to the party. Which had been part of his plan, since drinking and driving was never a good idea, but now Niki just wanted to be off the streets and in the empty expanse that was his apartment, where he could put on some shitty movie or go to sleep.

Except his house is blocks away, so Niki fishes his phone out of his pocket, clicking the familiar speed dial, there’s a wait with a stupid callback tone that he normally hates playing back at him, but for once Niki’s not grumbling about that he’s just hoping that the person on the other end picks up.

Two breaths longer and she does, the groggy voice of someone just woken up hesitantly says, “hello?”

“I almost kissed him,” Niki says quickly all in a rush, forcing the words to leave his mouth to confess what he’s scared to admit to himself.

“Shit, Niki,” Marlene says suddenly there’s alertness in her voice, and compassion, “are you alright?”

“I don’t know,” he answers, because he doesn’t, he isn’t good with emotions, and he doesn’t know how to describe what he’s feeling, what he’s been feeling.

“Do you want to be?”

“I don’t know… I don’t know…”


	9. Latte Bomb

James isn’t quite sure what the hell happened that night. He knew he messed something up, because well, James has a habit of messing things up, as a variety of exs have pointed out to him over the years. Though usually James knows what it is that he has done. It’s not like he got blackout drunk and forgot, he’s done that before, this time though he’s pretty sure he remembers everything, he just can’t put it back in order.

He texts Niki multiple times, versions of “I’m sorry” and “Hey what’s up,” nothing gets a reply. He’s pretty sure that facebook friend request is still pending, and James is too proud to bug Suzy again and see if she’ll stalk Niki for him.

James goes into the coffee shop more often, the times he usually expects Niki to be there, but he never is. It’s Marlene or Porn-Stache behind the counter, and the first gives him the cold shoulder and is brisk and to the point, while the other seems to look confused and almost pitying him, which is something that James hates in either case.

So he stops bothering to check by and a week goes past and James life just starts to go to shit of its own accord.

There’s a point in every story for James where he leaves, people know his name they know his face, but in a few weeks he would be just another person lost in the crowd, somebody starting to grow out of the college crowd that had been so easy for him to blend into years before. He’s got his shit in his car, been packed and ready to leave for a while to go, sick of all this, this couch surfing and the lack of continuity in his life. James isn’t sure if he’s ever had a constant in his life other than that when the going gets tough he gets back into his beat up Mini and finds a new place, somewhere where the parties are always buzzing and he can make a bit of cash doing some odds and ends jobs.

He’s heard the “it’s not you, it’s me” speech too many times, and he sort of zones off when they’re telling him that the winter will be rolling in soon and the bike shop cuts back on employees, McLaren tells him that it’s been a good couple of months and that if James comes back when he opens up again in the spring he’ll be more than happy to take him on again.

The money he has had saved up over the past months won’t last into spring, and he’s not exactly the most qualified person for jobs around here, so that’s pretty much off the table, but James smiles like its no big deal and says that he’ll consider it.

By the time he’s out of the shop and back into the streets it’s started sprinkling and for the life of him James can’t remember which one of the parking garages he parked his car at least, he wants to say its lot twenty-two, but that’s blocks away, and as he makes his way over to where he hopes it is, something stops him short in his path.

It’s a Thursday and everything he had learned over the past few weeks tells him that Niki doesn’t work on Thursdays, then again he hasn’t been working his usual days lately so who’s to say. It’s getting dark outside, winter rolling in, it’s pouring rain, and James is planning on leaving town anyways, so he can’t help himself.

One last time, one last try.

If nothing else he could probably get one of the other barista’s to pass on a message for him, say that he’s heading out.

James crosses the street quickly as the wind begins to pick up wiping the rain about.

He’s thankful for the relief from the weather when he opens the door of the shop to find it warmer than the outside, but not unbearably hot. The locals here seemed to have a weird idea about how air conditioning and heating systems were supposed to work. James is so content to be out of the rain that for a second he doesn’t even check to see whose working, but when he does he can’t help the smile that falls onto his face, because if nothing else, that’s something turning up the right way.

Niki’s there and for that moment there’s nothing but relief for James.

That is until he takes in the person in front of him, eyes wide, frozen in his spot and ridged as ever.

And all it once it’s like that stupid kickback a week ago and James is taking the stairs two at a time and he can hear Niki’s voice in his head “I’m not one of your pathetic girls” and “just get back to your friends.”

Except the Niki that’s here and now it’s saying anything, they’re both just sort of stuck.

“Look I don’t know what I did,” James says quickly, before Niki can say anything else, before he can run away from this situation, because Niki looks a second away from giving him a cold shoulder again. Right now there’s not much that James can fix in his life, but he needs to fix this otherwise he’s not sure if he’s ever going to be able to come back. He’s one second away from packing everything up and leaving again, because running away from responsibility has always been his thing.

This, this moment, is his make or break moment, and he needs to be honest with himself, he needs to be honest with both of them, but James isn’t even sure how to put his thoughts into words and Niki’s standing across from him looking so tense that he could snap, his fingers white knuckled against the counter top.

But he doesn’t end up saying what he should, because James isn’t sure that the truth is going to fix things, so he lies, “the whole night is sort of a blur. I drank a bit too much, and fuck Niki if I said something about you being a stick in the mud or some shit like that I didn’t actually mean it. I mean I might have but.”

Lying is sometimes easier than the truth, but he can see Niki visibly realizing in front of him, his grip on the counter slackens and he gives James this pathetic sort of half shrug before asking, “what’s the last thing you remember?”

“Beer pong,” James answers hesitantly, but that seems to be the right answer, because Niki lightens up a second later.

“I’ve been so stupid,” Niki says, a bit breathless.

And god, no he’s not, but James can’t say that not now so he just shrugs and says, “yeah. A bit.”

“Still, an asshole, I see.”

“Would you have me other way?”

He tries to take the eye roll that he gets as an answer as a sign that things are moving in the right direction.

“I’m glad to see you’re back, thought for a second you were avoiding me,” and okay, James knows for a fact that he was being avoided, but if he can just keep that stupid smile on his face that seems to work on everyone else then he knows he can get through this conversation just fine and things can be back to normal, or something close to it, “everyone else makes shit coffee.”

“I know,” Niki smirks, smug and reassured, he reaches out to grab one of the cups for his usual.

“Actually wait,” he says before Niki can grab the to-go cup, his hand still awkwardly hovers in the air over it as if unsure what to do with himself.

James wants to slip back into the usual, but in a second he’s counting the cash he has on hand and how much he needs in gas and how he’s not even sure what he’s going to do anymore, because Niki is sort of scowling at him in a way that could almost be considered fond in his own special way.

“Could I just get a water cup or something, I’m a bit tight on money right now and,” James doesn’t want to get into the whole explanation of things, because he’s not even sure where he would begin.

But something seems to furrow out in the brow of the man sitting across from him. Suddenly his tension is gone at once and he shifts forgoing the usual to go cup to grab one of the white coffee mugs that seem to be standard for people who sit inside the shop. He pats a spot along the bar’s counter, as if to tell James to sit there, before taking the cup back with him.

“Really Niki, water’s fine,” James insists though he took the indicated seat without a second thought.

“This is on the house,” the barista says, shaking his head and busying himself with the machinery, “you look like you’ve had a rough day, and I’m guess it’s not just my fault.”

“It was never your fault,” James insists, because it really wasn’t. Getting the cold shoulder from Niki hadn’t helped the week go by, but it wasn’t his fault that a bunch of messed up shit had to happen all at once.

“Do you want to talk about it,” Niki asks, the mug in his hands steaming now, but he’s turned away from the machine to look at James.

James should lie, every part of him, every logical thought in his head says that he should just lie about this and let it all blow over, but he can’t, for some reason James can’t, so he opens his mouth and says, “I lost my job, or well, I guess it wasn’t even a real job, just a part time thing, but I needed that. You know, to support my busy lifestyle,” he tries to laugh it off casually, but it doesn’t work.

“Shit, that fucking sucks.”

“You’re telling me.”

James hates it when people look at him with pity, he does everything in his power to actively avoid it, but the thing is Niki isn’t looking at him with pity, the expression on his face is hard to place, but it definitely isn’t pity.

For a second it looks like understand, but it’s gone as Niki moves to some sort of freezer thing in the back, and James turns to get a better view of what he’s doing behind the counter and “holy shit, is that ice cream?”

“It might be,” he answers with a mischievous lit to his voice.

“I didn’t even know you guys had ice cream here,” now that he thought about it, “why do you have ice cream here?”

“Secret menu,” Niki says turning and putting a finger over his lips making a little shush sound and if that’s not the cutest thing that James has ever seen then he’s not sure what is.

When the drink is put in front of him it looks like some sort of dessert a mix of coffee and ice cream and James just raises and eyebrow as he takes the mug from Niki before bringing it up to his lips to taste and yes, that was most definitely a wonderful idea.

“It’s called a Latte Bomb and in house specialty,” Niki says before James can even ask.

“You’re incredible.”

He really is, James isn’t sure what took him so long to really notice, to finally say it, but now it’s out there, and Niki just gives him that smartass smirk before saying, “I know,” like he gets those sorts of compliments all the time.

James drinks his drink and he has to thank Niki for being perceptive enough to realize that something’s wrong, that James needs a distraction and yet not push it. So they talk about stupid things or well Niki talks and gives him free refills and James sits there watching the way the lines on his forehead furrow together when he can’t remember something or how he bit his lip before answering a question that might have been a bit too personal.

He sits there as the rain pours down outside and customer’s stop coming in, in fact, everybody else seems to have left without James even realizing it, and Niki’s stealing the cup away from him, telling him that he needs to wash it up so he can close up the shop for the night.

“Is it that time already,” James asks, not even realizing how much time has passed, it’s still dark outside, but when he checks his phone the light on the screen blinks back at him and says that it’s past ten in the evening.

“I was supposed to kick you out fifteen minutes ago,” Niki admits.

“Oh,” James says slowly, “well I can just leave then.”

Except, leaving means going back to his car, and he still wasn’t exactly sure which lot it was parked in and he was supposed to be leaving town, but James isn’t entirely sure that he can do that, because he’s just spent the last few hours hearing about stupid coffee shop gossip regarding people he doesn’t even know.

James doesn’t know if he walks out the door if he’ll be coming back and that makes him never want to leave, a part of him wonders if he could just sleep on one of the benches in here and refuse to leave, instead have Niki make him coffee every day for the rest of his life until he dies and gets to haunt the coffee shop, but hey, that seems pretty cool too, so James could be down for that.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Niki says, “I saw you walk over here from across the street. Let me give you a ride home the weather’s gotten worse.”

Except, James doesn’t know how to say that he doesn’t have a place to stay so instead he asks, “do you have an umbrella?”

“My car’s not far from here,” he answers, and James watches as he now pulls off that work apron quickly turning to toss it into the back room.

There’s a whine to his voice as he replies, “but Niki, it’s wet.”

 “That’s what she said.”

“Oh. My. God. You are human,” James laughs, “for a second there I thought you were a Vulcan, but no look at that, squishy and normal like the rest of us.”

“I’m not squishy,” Niki insists, because of course, that is the part that he objects to, and no he most certainly is not. He’s skinny and sharp angles and positively appealing in is knit jumper.

He moves to flick the lights off, and James gets out of the bar stool, tugging his shirt around his shoulders, already knowing that it won’t be much coverage for once they’re outside.

“I still, can’t believe you don’t have an umbrella.”

“Here just use this,” Niki says, as he grabs one of the free newspapers off the rank by the door and tosses it to James before taking one for himself and opening it up holding it over his head.

“I’ve seen this in a movie before,” James says with a laugh, the newspaper that was tossed to him still in his hand rather than slotted over his head as Niki opens the door for them that leads out into the dark night sky the clouds pouring rain around them. “You do call me an asshole often enough.”

“I am not Janet Weiss,” Niki says a small hint of a flush on his cheeks, and James is suddenly so happy that Niki’s caught his reference, not just because it means that hey they might have something in common, but he’s managed to get him flustered again and it has to be James’ favorite look on the barista.

“Damn it, Janet.”

“I will leave you here,” Niki says with his usual dry humor.

“You wouldn’t,” James gives a fake gasp.

“Highly considering it.”

James laughs, “No you’re right, you wouldn’t be Janet. You’d be better suited as Riff-“

“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence,” Niki warns, he’s just finished locking up the outside door to the shop and there’s a newspaper over his head that’s starting to get soggy, but his glare isn’t nearly as threatening as he probably hopes that it would be.

“And I’d be Rocky, for obvious reasons.”

The flush that James thought he might have caught before becomes distinctively more clear, and he smirks, “you’re imagining it aren’t you.”

“Fuck you, you can walk.”

Though he doesn’t hold up on his promise, because even as he stalks away he looks back over his shoulder to make sure that James is following him.

“Don’t get my car soaking wet,” Niki warns as he unlocks the doors and though they both know that that’s not exactly a matter of choice with this weather, still James does his best to keep the door open for the most minimal amount of time necessary to slip inside.

When Niki slides into the driver’s seat he seems to hesitate for a moment, “it’s just off El Cap, right,” he asks.

It takes a moment for James to process what he meant, and “yeah, but that wasn’t actually my place.”

The problem is, James hadn’t exactly had time to figure out where was going to be living and knowing Niki if James asked for some random apartment building he would probably wait around for James to go inside, which was a significant flaw in his plan for getting back to his own car.

“Where do you live then,” Niki asks blunt and to the point.

“Actually, it’s a bit, yeah,” James says, having trouble lying already, “I’ll just get my car its fine.”

There’s a pregnant pause where James moves his hand over to the handle of the car door, but before he can do so Niki speaks up again, “which lot is it in I’ll drive you over?”

“That is an excellent question.”

“Are you serious?”

“I think it’s in one of the parking garages, either twenty-two or fifty or nine.”

“You do realize those are all in completely different places,” Niki comments a bit skeptical.

“Yeah I just-“

“I can give you a ride home tonight and you can find your car tomorrow when the weather clears up.”

“Really Niki, it’s fine if I can walk.”

“I don’t understand what the big deal is.”

And then, before James can think it through too much and think of the consequences he just does it, honesty being a policy that he’s not exactly used to, but one that’s coming to him so naturally when Niki’s around that he can’t help it. The words come all out in a rush, “actually I’ve been couch surfing and kind of living out of my car and I might be leaving anyways because I haven’t got job here anymore so there’s no reason to stay here,” other than you, “look this is super awkward, but if you want I can just walk otherwise a ride to parking lot would be great, because I’ll probably just be sleeping in there for the night until I can sort things out or whatever.”

As soon as the words are out there he’s regretting it, the honesty, but when he looks over at Niki, he’s still got his car keys in his hand and he looks tossed between saying things, and James isn’t sure what he expects, but it is most certainly not the next words that come out of Niki’s mouth.

“You can stay at my place for the night.”

“Really?”

Because this sounds too good to be true, this has to be a dream. He’s going to wake up any second now passed out in his mini or on somebody’s couch and this whole day will be a dream like Dorothy and Oz, it’s all too good to be true.

“Yes really,” Niki says, “now shut up and let me drive.”

He finally manages to get the car running and James isn’t sure what happened, how this morning he wouldn’t have been able to get Niki to talk to him and now he’s going to be sleeping over at his place. Maybe just maybe his luck was turning up after all, leaving town and finding somewhere new to start afresh suddenly sounded like the worst idea in the world.

 “You drive like my grandmother,” James announces upon realizing that they are moving at approximately ten miles an hour in a nearly abandoned twenty-five mile per hour zone, “no wait, worse than my grandmother, and she’s dead,” he stresses, noting very briefly how the other guy’s hands tighten up against the steering wheel for the very briefest of moments.

“I thought I told you to be quite while I was driving.”

“Literally, slower than my grandmother, rest her soul.”

“The chance of a car accident increases ten percent in the rain,” Niki says, keeping his eyes on the road, “increasing to thirty percent when going over the speed limit. Rain is the second most common cause of accidents, second only to drunk driving, which,” there’s a pause before he shakes his head a bit and continues, “if it’s all the same to you I’d prefer not to get into an accident.”

“There is literally nobody out right now,” James says waving his hands in front of him for emphasis, “literally. We’re not going to crash if you go the speed limit or something fuck.”

He slams on the breaks too quickly when they get to the next stop sign, there’s a second when he clicks the automatic locks open, before he whirls around in the seat to look at James before taking off again, “if you want to get out you can.”

Except he can’t. It’s not that James has nowhere to go, he could find somewhere or something, a bit of searching and eventually he would be able to find his car again, but there’s something more important than that, something that keep him rooted in the spot. He couldn’t leave the car if he wanted to. Hell, he couldn’t even break eye contact with Niki, James had never been awestruck by somebody before it wasn’t in nature for him everything was fleeting, he was here one day gone the next, but this was somebody that made James want to stay still for once, to stop the world from spinning.

He reaches behind him, fumbling for where the lock is and pushes it down into place. That seems to break the spell, because a second later Niki nods a bit turning his gaze back to the road and driving once more.

There’s the pitter patter and pouring of rain as background music, mixed with piano notes and lyrics on a rigged up speaker system turned far too down to for James make it out, and there’s something mystifying about it, the same way that night on the roof had been, before James had messed things up without meaning to.

 “Hey Niki,” James says, because he’s not going to mess it up this time, and when his companion makes a tiny noise of acknowledgement, James breaths out all at once and says, “thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been waiting to get to this chapter for a while now, and I realize the majority of it is just self-indulgent things that I like, so thank you all for reading along to this point in the story!
> 
> As far as drinks go a Latte Bomb is the greatest thing in the world, I got one yesterday when I told the barista that my birthday was coming up soon, and let me tell you 10/10 would recommend, if your local coffee shop makes anything like it, you have to try it!
> 
> Speaking of which, sadly this will probably be the last update going into this weekend, since Friday (November 15th) is my birthday and I will be doing birthday shenanigans for the weekend and will likely not have time to actually sit down and write until it's all over.


	10. Instant Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told myself (and you all) I was going to take the weekend off, but this was half finished, and I got inspired. //haha
> 
> And a big thank you to everyone for the birthday wishes, you guys are are amazing!!

The rain is coming down even worse when they finally make it back to his apartment and so Niki grabs his newspaper once more, ignoring the small teasing grumbles that James gives in reply.

He’s just thankful once he finally manages to punch into the code to his apartment complex the door opening wide and while the little lobby area isn’t exactly the warmest place in the world it’s at least out of the weather. Niki takes the stairs, because he’s on the third story on the fifth, and maybe after enough heckling from certain other people he’s decided to care about the environment. Though after the first flight of stairs with his clothing damp and slightly uncomfortable Niki begins to regret it, especially when he thinks he can hear James’ teeth chattering behind him.

There’s a voice in the back of Niki’s head that says that this is a bad idea, but what was he supposed to do, drop him off in a parking lot where his car may or may not have been. Niki’s slept in a car before, it’s not exactly the most comfortable thing in the world, actually it’s pretty awful. He keeps trying to thell himself that that’s the reason why he told James he could spend the night.

 The door sticks on the way in, and Niki rams his shoulder up against the old thing before finally getting it to creak open and reveal his sparsely decorated apartment.

“Welcome,” Niki says, with little flourish, and he takes off his wet cardigan, draping it over the back of one of the little chairs around the a rickety table.

James is still soaking wet and for a second Niki just stands there like an idiot, because while he had whined about the other guy getting his car wet, now that they’re inside his eyes are instantly drawn to the way the wet shirt clings to his torso, and before he can stop himself Niki says, “you should probably get out of your wet things, you’ll catch your death.”

“Worried about me,” James teases.

“More worried about whether a dead body in my apartment would mean losing my visa,” he answers sarcastically.

Except there’s a problem, because James getting out of his wet cloths means that he would be very much naked since he didn’t have any spare clothing with him. Honestly, Niki half wonders how James has been making it around then if his clothing’s been in his car, though that might explain the bro tanks, raiding the closet of his friends in fraternities or the free shirts that were given out at school functions.

Then again, Niki doesn’t even know if James is a proper student or how long he’s been living out of his car.

Though he supposes there will be time for that later.

For now there was a more important matter at hand, “I think I have some things that might fit,” Niki says which sounds impossible because he is obviously smaller than James is, shorter and lankier, “gym shorts, at least, hold on.”

Niki turns quickly towards where his bedroom is, leaving James in the makeshift living room for a moment, “don’t sit on my furniture until you’re dry,” he shouts over his shoulder as he ducks into his bedroom.

Thankfully Niki keeps his bedroom as meticulously clean as the rest of his apartment, so it’s easy enough to open up a drawer where he knows that god awful pair of gym shorts he was given as a gag gift are. They’re that whole one size fits all mesh drawstring thing, but it’s better than nothing.

The problem is Niki knows with absolute certainty that he does not have any shirts that could possibly fit James. He’s been wearing skin tight clothing for years, flannels and cardigans and things that wouldn’t fit the shoulders or general size of somebody like James, not unless he wanted the clothing to get completely stretched out.

Speaking of clothing, his own is a bit wet, Niki quickly shucks the outfit, tossing it into his hamper, before pulling on a pair of flannel pants and a worn band t-shirt. It’s his house and he figures that he might as well be comfortable, even if he does technically have company over.

It’s only James, after all.

When Niki steps out of his bedroom he sort expects James to be standing where he left him, dripping wet in the doorway or maybe even poking around in his things, because he seems like the nosy type. However, what he finds instead is a bit startling. For a second Niki just stands there his hand still on doorknob, the door to his room halfway closed, as he stares at the sight before him.

“Why the hell are you naked,” Niki squeaks, though he will never admit that that noise was a squeak, later calling it a cough to his dying day.

And of course, James doesn’t have the decency to even pretend that he’s ashamed of the fact that he’s effectively stripped down to his boxers. Instead he flashes Niki this grin, like that’s supposed to make everything right as rain, “they were wet.”

“So that’s just an invitation to disrobe?”

“Yes, actually I-“ James pauses his eyes giving Niki a once over that makes him feel suddenly ten times more self-conscious, “dear god, are you wearing flannel pajamas,” James laughs, and now that he’s being poked at Niki suddenly finds himself very much able to look away from the other guy.

He tosses the shorts at James, along with a bath towel to try himself off with, “that’s the best I’ve got,” before giving him a glare and heading towards the hall closet.

There’s some shuffling behind him and a muttered curse and it is almost enough to make Niki turn back around, but he’s already done enough looking for the day and he knows that he shouldn’t be staring like some lecherous creep (that’s James job). So he keeps himself focused by hunting through the closet for a spare blanket and sheet set that Niki knows for certain is somewhere in there.

It takes a bit of hunting, but eventually he finds them, and by time he turns back around James is thankfully clothed, or well as best as he they can manage, he’s shirtless (which is a bit distracting), but at least the gym shorts seem to fit.

He scoots James out of the way in order to set the blankets on the couch, “there you go,” he says, his duty essentially done.

“Thanks again,” James replies.

Niki fully intends to retreat back to his room after laying out a few quick ground rules, but rather than doing so he notices how wet he still is, the towel Niki had tossed him before draped over his shoulders, “you look cold,” he says bluntly.

“Just a bit.”

 “I have some instant, if you need it,” Niki offers, “it’ll be warm.”

“Instant,” James pauses as he says the word, a grin growing on his face, “you, the most hipster barista in existence have instant coffee.”

“Do you want some or not,” Niki asks tersely.

There’s laughter in his voice this time, “Seriously though? Shouldn’t you have fair trade coffee, or be breaking your own beans or something terribly pro-choice.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“I can’t believe you have instant coffee.”

“I can make you tea instead,” Niki offers, trying to get off the topic of this before he becomes any more stupidly embarrassed by the whole thing.

“I guess it’s true that they say about the starving college student, cupboards stocked with ramen noodles too?”

Niki does have a few packs, but that’s not even the point here. Plus, James doesn’t have any room to say anything about what Niki does or does not have in his apartment, because last time he checked the other guy didn’t even have an apartment.

“I’m actually not a student,” Niki admits a bit sheepishly, “but the café barely pays over minimum anyways, so I-“

“Wait, you’re not a student,” James cuts him off.

Niki had really wanted to avoid this topic. It wasn’t something he felt subconscious about, but there was a part of him in the back of his mind that was disappointed in himself, a part that Niki didn’t particularly like to admit to. “No, I’m not,” he answered shaking his head slightly.

“Me neither,” James says so easily, as if the admission was nothing, as if it was simply a fact.

That’s not the sort of thing that Niki could ever have done.

In order to avoid pushing the topic Niki busies himself with making them some of that instant coffee, because James looks cold and it’s not like Niki’s going to be able to sleep anyways at this point.

He had hoped that the topic would have been dropped and that they could just move on, but he’s not that foolish and his companion is a bit too persistent for his own good.

“If you’re not a student why are you living here then,” James asks.

“I could ask the same question,” he starts, a frown on his face thankfully hidden since his back is to James, “but, uh, I was a student.”

“Did not peg you for the drop out type…”

His hands shake for the briefest of moments as he pulls out two coffee cups from his cabinets, “It wasn’t my choice,” and he knows if he starts this conversation he’s not going to be able to leave it, not until he finishes it. So he pours the instant into their two cups, brings one over to James and settles himself on the other end of his couch, legs curled up underneath himself. He takes a second to breathe over the steam coming off the cup before beginning again, “I came here as a business major on a student visa, but when I decided that business wasn’t the right track for me and wanted to switch my major, my father decided to stop paying for school,” Niki can still remember the conversation vividly in his head, he hadn’t gone home since then, hadn’t wanted to, but sometimes he’s a masochistic shit and takes his father’s calls and tries not to breakdown. “Without any funds I was forced to drop out, I’ve been hoping that after a while I would save up enough to go back.”

“I’m sorry your dad’s a dick,” James says, and while his apology is shit, his expression has finally shifted from one of smug douchebaggery that it usually seems to be to be something far more open. Niki’s afraid to admit that his own face probably looks much the same.

And it’s stupid, because Niki definitely doesn’t do emotional talks, just like he doesn’t invite people to spend the night on his couch, but James seems to be an exception to that.

It’s like that night, except, except Niki fucked things up then, he knows that, and James doesn’t remember, which is the biggest blessing he could ever ask for, because maybe now he won’t have to keep pushing people away.

He sips his coffee, and it’s kind of awful, but he’s not sure what to do, his shoulders shrug ever so slightly words not coming to him for once. He’s pretty certain that it’s the fault of the guy sitting across from him, he’s highly distracting, and not just because he is currently shirtless.

“What about you,” Niki asks a bit hesitantly, “you’re not a student either?”

“College didn’t exactly fit my lifestyle,” James says with a shrug.

Niki wants to push it, he wants to ask for more, he shared his story, but that wasn’t part of their arrangement. Hell, they didn’t even have an arrangement, so Niki just sort of nods and takes another drink letting the silence stretch between them.

He finishes his drink quicker than he would have liked, but he’s antsy to get out of there, emotional conversations never exactly having been Niki’s forte, in fact, he avoided them at all costs under normal conditions. The coffee burned from having been drunk too fast, and James was still nursing his when Niki pushes off the couch and washes out the cup, “just put your cup in the sink when you’re done. I’ll wash it in the morning.”

“Sure thing.”

He nods a bit, dries his hands off on his pants and quietly says, “well, goodnight then.”

Niki wants to say something more, he knows that he should, but it’s only when he’s standing in front of his doorway that he knows what he wants to say. Spinning around a bit too far quickly to meets eyes with the person sitting on the couch, who had been staring back at him the coffee cup halfway to his mouth.

“You can stay, as long as you need,” Niki says before he can take back the words, they’re all coming out in a rush and he feels like he’s going to be regretting them later. “Until you find a permanent place, I mean, you can stay here instead of couch hoping or whatever.”

And there’s this look on James’ face that’s not entirely amazement, but maybe like a mix of gratitude, and a hint of smugness when he says, “I knew you liked me,” in a teasing tone.

But Niki covers it up quickly scoffing, “you’re tolerable.”

He peeks over his shoulder just once on his way to his room to see an expression that makes it out like Niki’s the most wonderful person in the world, but that’s complete bullshit and he knows it.

It has to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [Emy](http://moonsstars.tumblr.com/) who made this amazing [gif set](http://moonsstars.tumblr.com/post/67071447567/for-jess-birthday-and-her-fantastic-coffee-shop) for the fic! (check it out!)


	11. Cappuccino

When he wakes up the next morning his first thought is to figure out where the hell he is and why the world isn’t spinning. It’s not quite unusual for James to wake up in unfamiliar places; in fact, he has made quite a habit of it over the years.

Just normally there’s a warm body pressed against his side, some girl or guy that he had enticed to spending the night with, and normally James feels a bit like shit, because hangovers fucking suck.

That is why this particular morning was one that left James feeling a bit off.

It took him a second for his frighteningly clear mind to remember what exactly he had gotten into the night before, and how exactly he had ended up here, in Niki’s apartment of all places, without having actually slept with him.

A small feat for a Mister James Hunt.

For a brief moment James considers just leaving, slipping out the front door and sticking to the plan that he had made yesterday before he had stopped by at the coffee shop and all of this had happened.

Except, then he remembers what Niki had said last night, about how he could stay as long as he needed, until he sorted things out, and well, nobody’s ever offered anything like that before.

 Sure friends will let him crash for a night or too assuming he buys drinks for the next party, but somebody just offering with nothing expected in return seems strange to him.

Especially since this is Niki.

After the other night James was pretty certain he had fucked things up for good, and somehow him going into apologize (and say goodbye) ended up with him crashing on his couch after a severe lack of romantic or sexual interaction, well, it was confusing to say the least.

Though he wasn’t too certain that it was a bad sort of confusing.

It was just a confusing sort of confusing.

James stretches his arms over his head, before taking in the apartment.

He hadn’t gotten the best look at it the night before, but now that it’s day time he’s able to really look at how meticulously clean and ordered it is. There are no posters hanging on the walls, though a shelving unit displays an extensive collection of vinyl records and a vintage record player to go along with it. The plant on one of the side tables appears to be fake, a post-it stuck to the side where cursive handwriting reads: _something you can’t kill._ There’s a severe lack of knickknacks or even personal photographs. Nothing that clues James into his life or past. There’s a distinct lack of a personal touch to most of the things, signs of somebody who doesn’t get attached easily.

James is the opposite, even though he’s been technically living out of his car he keeps a variety of useless things stuffed in the back of it, items that he was too attached to simply let go of.

Just judging from what’s around him he doubts that Niki’s ever had that feeling.

Though he’s yet to see his bedroom, so he can’t make a conclusive decision on that particular point.

While he continues his search of the place he happens to stumble upon the bathroom, which reminds him that he sort of smells like wet dog, thank you rain, and while normally sleeping over at people’s places involve shower sex (something James is very good at), but since that clearly isn’t going to happen, he might as well still take a shower.

James heads back to the living room to grab the towel that had been tossed at him the night before as well as his jeans, which are thankfully now dry, before heading off to the shower.

By time he has finished James can tell that Niki must have awoken, because he hears signs of shuffling about on the other side of the bathroom door.

Once he puts his jeans back on and slips out of the bathroom though he realizes that Niki is still in his room, talking to somebody from the sounds of it.

James can’t hear the entire conversation, but there’s Niki’s voice clearly muffled by the sound of the door speaking to somebody in quick German that James barely catches any of. Though Niki clearly repeats one phrase, “Er ist in meiner dusche,” not that James has the slightest clue what any of that means.

He’s fluent in English, and that’s about it.

He just hopes it’s not anything too insulting.

James shuts the door to the bathroom a bit louder than is really necessary, there’s more muffled German and with James most minimal of knowledge he catches what he thinks is the word for goodbye.

(Truth be told the only phrase James knows is “ _Möchtest du mit mir schlafen”_ , though really that’s all one ever needs to know in a foreign language. The basics: “hello,” “goodbye,” and “let’s fuck.”)

He’s still drying off his hair with a stolen (borrowed) towel when Niki exits his room.

“I see you found the shower,” he says dryly.

“Not used to showering alone,” James teases, “shame you weren’t up to join me.”

When Niki makes a sort of embarrassed, but displeased noise, James laughs it off, “I was joking.”

“Yes well,” he starts, but then stops himself, “yes.”

It’s actually incredibly adorable how he gets flustered before trying to squash it down with an angry look. His reaction only makes James want to do it more, to see the littlest of cracks in the uncaring and unpleasant exterior that he seems so focused on presenting to the world.

“Have you eaten,” Niki asks.

And no, of course he hadn’t. James may have been a total mooch and a curious one at that, he had taken the time to peek around the place, but that didn’t mean he had invited himself into the pantry as well. He shook his head in response.

“You shouldn’t starve yourself,” Niki grumbles, “feel free to raid the fridge if you need to.”

While James hadn’t been willing to steal food without an invitation, the second one is presented he’s not so foolish as to let it slip by, “thanks, man,” he says beaming clapping Niki on the shoulder as he passes him in order to try and find something edible.

Niki already having grabbed something and lounges in one of the arm chairs set out by his television set, though James does note that the other guy’s eyes follow him for the briefest of moments until James meets his gaze.

Ignoring whatever that was, he opens up the fridge and double takes when he sees what’s inside. Unlike normal people’s fridges which are cluttered with takeout boxes and beer, this one seems to be half taken up by one particular kind of food in particular.

“Question,” James says, staring into the open refrigerator, only when it’s clear that he’s gotten Niki’s attention does he turn to smile at him, “do you eat anything other than yogurt, because I honest cannot find any other food in here.”

“There should be some fruit in the crisper,” Niki muses, “probably.”

“Probably,” James drawls, “that’s not exactly reassuring.”

“I didn’t realize I invited you over to criticize my food choices.”

“I didn’t realize that you didn’t own any real food.”

Niki rolls his eyes at him, “and had you been aware would you have found somewhere else to stay?”

James just shrugs his shoulders.

“If it’s really that big of a deal next time I go grocery shopping you can come with,” Niki says.

Next time.

As if to imply that James will be welcome long enough that he’ll be there when he goes grocery shopping again.

“It is a big deal,” James says, but he’s found an apple amongst the fridge, and yes, to be fair there are other foods in there, just in much more sparse quantities. Though James was pretty certain that he hadn’t seen any meat in there, and god save him if Niki ended up being not only incredibly hipster, but one of those vegetarian hipsters as well.  

“That reminds me,” Niki says, “I have some errands to do today, but I was going to run by the shop first. If you want, I can drop you off over there, that way you can find your car or whatever.”

That’s right.

James had nearly forgotten that he had forgotten where he parked his car.

Funny how things worked out like that.

Cars getting misplaced.

At least the coffee shop would put him close enough to the local college’s campus that James could easily walk to the parking garages where he normally parked his Mini Cooper.

“Sounds great.”  

The rest of the morning passes pretty quickly, James finishing up his apple just in time for when Niki was ready to head out again, there was only a very minor snafu when the case of James’ missing shirt from the night before came up (a situation he’s not unfamiliar with, but this time it’s not because it was pulled off in a foreplay-filled rush, but rather so that it could dry off).

The ride over seems shorter now that it’s day time and the rain has finally stopped, though there are still puddles all over the ground, which Niki grumbles about having to drive through, soon enough though the all too familiar coffee shop comes into view.

“You totally hooked up didn’t you,” is the first thing he hears when they enter the shop.

Marlene is working today, leaning across the counter her gaze unflinching and scrutinizing as she takes in their appearances.

 By his side, Niki has frozen up, ducked his head a bit and sidestepped out of the door way.

Which leaves James to answer her question, “Oh yeah, totally,” he says sarcastically.

“I knew it was only a matter of time,” she smiles back at him, the joke clear in her tone, though there seems to be a bit of innuendo laid in there too which leaves him confused and curious.

Finally Niki appears to have bounced back from his moment of being flustered and has turned rather indignantly towards the two of them. “I hate you both,” he says with a hiss, before moving around the counter to where it opens.

“I thought you weren’t working today?”

“Oh he’s not,” Marlene cuts in before Niki can answer, “he just says I make terrible coffee-“

“She does.”

“-which is totally not true. Somebody’s just very picky,” she answers louder than before, “so he always has to make his own.”

“Speaking of which,” James smirks, “did you know he only has instant at his place?”

“I know! Did you see his fridge?”

“Yes, I-“

“Neither of you are ever welcome at my apartment again,” Niki speaks up sharply, and though he is busy at the coffee machine, James can just imagine his face, grumpy and slightly embarrassed, a very Niki expression.  

“I’m wounded.”

“Actually that reminds me,” Niki says, as he puts a cap on the drink he had just made, “I’m going to need your key back.”

“Niki! I thought we were friends,” Marlene fake gasps, “I take back my complaints about your fridge!”

“I’ll make you another one later,” he offers before making a sort of grabby motion with his hands.

James watches the exchange between the two of them with slight amusement, as Marlene eventually pulls out a key ring from her pocket and removes on of the keys from the ring handing it over to Niki who in turn offers it up to James.

“You know since you’re staying over,” Niki says, “figured you’d need to be able to get in.”

“Yeah, thanks,” he says, flashing a grin as he takes the offered key. James rolls in over in his hand once or twice before stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans.

“Also, this,” he offers the coffee cup up to James, and well, he probably should have expected that by now.

He looks down to the side of the cup where normally Niki writes ‘asshole’ or on the one rare occasion wrote his name, but this time it says something completely different.

“Freeloader,” James reads the words aloud, “wow, real heart of gold you got there.”    

Niki just shrugs his shoulders as if to say ‘fuck you’ and moves around to make his own drink now.

“Go find your car, asshole.”

Right, he really should be getting on that.

“On that note, baristas, patrons of this glorious coffee shop,” James laughs, “I bid you adieu.”

It’s just as he’s heading out the door that he hears a squeal of delight and a clear woman’s voice saying, “Clay, I owe you a twenty, but you were right~!”   


	12. Frozen Lemonade

It’s not to say that Niki dislikes suddenly having a housemate, rather it is simply something that takes a bit of time to get used to. He’s never really been the type of person to live with other people willingly.

Even when he had been going to university he had insisted that his father paid the extra money to get him a private room. The communal bathrooms were bad enough; sometimes he still swears he has flashbacks to the horrifying things he had seen in those stalls.

After his little falling out with the college experience and his subsequent move to the surrounding area Niki had specifically looked into places that had cheap single bedroom apartments. His only other real requirement had been to find a place with a flat roof that was easy enough to access, but that was irrelevant.

Somehow though, even while he had mentally prepared himself to hate the arrangement, and regret having offered James a place on his couch, he actually found himself liking it a lot more than he had originally expected.  Niki finds himself noticing the little shifts in his life that he hadn’t expected, that he had pushed back against at all costs, though none are quite so potent as the moment when he stood in the bathroom, the mirror fogging up showing a message that had been written in the perspiration before that simply says, _good morning sunshine._

Niki rolls his eyes before wiping it away with the backside of his towel.

He’s not entirely sure what James does when he gets left behind at the apartment.

The first time he had done so Niki spent a good part of his shift fretting about whether his home was going to be ransacked with nothing left inside, but after the first time went over well he stopped worrying that James was going to make off with all of his belongings.

“What do you do when I’m not around,” Niki had asked once.

But James had just avoided the question giving him a rather suggestive grin and answered, “things.”

Which led to a thirty minute discussion (rant) by Niki about how James as not allowed to invite strange people over and have sex on his couch or god forbid, any other piece of furniture or flat surface in the apartment. James playfully swore not to, “boy scout’s honor.”

In the end though, he does find out the answer, though not from James. Instead oddly enough, it’s his landlady who knows the answer. At the end of the week when Niki goes to turn in his rent check, the sweet old lady smiles at him and pats his hand, before telling him a price remarkably smaller than what he usually pays.

“I don’t understand,” Niki says, when she turns down his money.

“Your friend,” who Niki takes that she means James, “he has been helping me with some odd jobs around the building, fixed the window in the laundry room after those kid’s broke it. He wouldn’t let me pay him, but I can’t let you boys go without thanks.”

“I-“

“Keep it, do something special,” she says, and that’s the end of that, because a second later, she’s shooing him out of her office and on his way.  

Reasonably he knows that he should save the money, because it’s not every day that he gets a discount on rent, and Niki keeps telling himself that he’s going to save up so he can go back to school, but at the same time, the decrease in rent, the very reason that he had money to spare, was due to the lump that had taken up residence on his couch over the last week. And the tiny, very tiny, part of Niki that had moral knew that he couldn’t just pocket the money, at the same time, he felt a bit nervous about just giving it to James, and instead began to formulate a plan to purchase him something he might need to make up for it.

He doesn’t end up coming up with what exactly that was going to be until he had finishes climbing the stairs and he opens the door to find James trying to organize the suitcase that he has been living out of, and that holds a massive collection of bro tanks.

Well, something has to be done about that fashion sense.

“Come on asshole, we’re going shopping,” Niki says, from the doorway, his car keys still in his hand from earlier.

“Shopping?”

“Yes,” he answers, “because I can no longer deal with your inability to properly dress yourself.”

“I could take if off if that would-“

“Come on, car, now,” Niki cut him off quickly.

As shocking as it was to believe, there was a time when Niki had just as little fashion sense as James had, well maybe a bit more, but not too much. He didn’t particularly see why it was worth making the effort, especially not when he had been spending most his days with his nose buried in a textbook trying to make sense of all the things that he was supposed to be learning.

Only once he had gotten hired at the coffee shop that he was actually forced to develop the sense of fashion that he now prided himself on, since his previous style of dress had not fit in with the “hip” atmosphere that they prided themselves on having.

It seems almost hard for him to remember what it was like being nineteen years old and highly unwilling when Clay had practically dragged him to the nearest mall and forced into H&M and Urban Outfitters, and anything else that would get the job done decently enough. Still, the memory was clear enough in his head that he knew exactly which stores he needed to drag James too once they arrived at the mall.

First things first, he leads them over to one of the frozen lemonade kiosks, because if Niki is going to get through a day of shopping he is going to need a frozen lemonade, plus the bribe seems to work well enough on James who seems significantly more pliant now that there’s something to put in his mouth, at least if nothing else, it stops him from being able to complain.

The first shop they go to ends up being a bit of a hassle though, because James is apparently very opposed to cardigans and blazers, something that Niki cannot understand at all, and is making this process a lot more difficult that it really needs to be.

He feels sort of like that guy from _What Not to Wear_ , though he keeps that comment to himself. There’s simply no real reason to explain what he has watched all of the seasons of that, admittedly awful show, though he blames Marlene for all of that.

“Just try it on,” Niki says, his patience wearing a bit thin.

“I’m going to look like,” James starts, but doesn’t finish the sentence.

“Like what?”

“Like you,” he says finally, though that doesn’t seem like what he was going to finish the first statement with at all.

Niki just rolls his eyes before grabbing one of the outfits off the stack, and shoving it into James’ arms. “Dressing room, now.”

At least this time he obeys. Though he takes his sweet time in the dressing room, and Niki never did have much patience to begin with.

After about a minute he heads into where the dressing rooms are, ignoring the less than pleased store clerk’s vaguely venomous look that gets cast in his general direction and knocking his first against the door that James had disappeared into.

“What’s taking so long,” he asks.

“God man, just give me a second, these things are fucking tight.”

Which, oh, that’s a mental image that is probably a lot hotter than reality.

“Do you need a bigger size,” Niki offers.

But his answer is a slightly muffled, “fuck you,” before he says, “just hold on, princess, not need to get your panties in a knot.”

Niki ignores that last bit, but takes a step back from the door and leans against the wall opposite to the stall that James is inside.

“I want to see,” he says.

“No shit,” James huffs, but before Niki can retort anything else the door to the changing room swings open and from it steps James.

Fuck, he looks hot.

Not like his usual hot which is decently attractive yet hidden under a layer of douche-bro-ness. Nor the dripping wet and nearly naked in Niki’s living room look. This is, a completely different level of attractiveness, something that for a brief second renders Niki almost speechless as he stands there staring back at the other guy.

“That bad,” James asks, though there’s a twinkle in his eye.

When Niki finally has the decency to make a little cough and try and act like this isn’t affecting him at all, he shrugs his shoulders in a faux casual way and says, “it’s not bad.” This being the understatement of the century. 

A pair of skinny jeans can work wonders on the human figure, that’s the truth of it.

“-doesn’t allow much breathing room.”

Niki snapped back into focus when he realizes that James had been talking again, though the part that he had tuned into didn’t help the thoughts running through his head.

“You’ll get used to it,” Niki says sharply, “Now take those off so we can purchase them.”

“Yes, sir,” he smirks, giving a playful fake salute before turning on his heels and heading back into the dressing room, and none of this is fair at all, because the first thought that comes to his mind is how he wants to go into that dressing room with him and ‘help’ him take those off, and fuck, he really shouldn’t be thinking like that.

So, yeah, he’s definitely buying that. 


	13. Skim Mocha Latte

 “You’re not supposed to be back here if you’re not an employee,” Niki points out, though he does nothing to actually stop him. 

They’ve been through this very discussion many times before. James has learned to just ignore Niki’s protests, it’s for the best.

“I live with you,” James says with a laugh, “so technically makes me, at least, twenty percent an employee.”

For a second his response seems to stun Niki into silence, but the scowl on the guy’s face says that he doesn’t think the joking comment is nearly as funny as James thinks that it is. “You’re impossible and illogical, and I’m trying to work.”

James smiles at the young woman who is waiting at the counter for her order to be taken, some of the general type that frequents this shop, students with scarves wrapped around their necks and decoupage phone cases, “you should try the pumpkin spice latte, Niki makes a killer pumpkin spice, way better than that shit you get at Starbucks, too mainstream. This one is much better, such coffee, very wow.”

“I hate you,” Niki hisses, though its playful, as he bats his hands away from the machines and goes to help the customer out.

“You guys are really cute together,” the girl says when she’s finished ordering, taking James advice, to which he punches the air victoriously.

“We’re not-“

“Cute,” James finishes for him, and slings an arm over the barista’s shoulders, “not nearly macho enough for him. Niki prefers more manly adjectives.”

Niki ducks out underneath his reach, curse him for being smaller, and grumpily repeats, “James, I’m trying to work.”

“Don’t mind me,” James says, though as he notices a line beginning to form, it’s been getting colder out which means more students ducking into coffee shops for something warm to drink.

Niki had come back to their (his) apartment the other day grumbling about how it was getting colder and why that had to happen. When James pointed out that “winter was coming,” he just ended up getting a shoe tossed at him, apparently Niki didn’t appreciate his reference, his loss, the Starks are (were) kickass. 

Back in the present though, he sort of doesn’t like how the colder weather means more people coming in, because today was the day that James had intended to use those pickup lines that he had spent some time googling, he had even convince Marlene to show him how to work the iPod dock that played the music to the shop and had a whole plan in order, but that plan was being hampered by the fact that students kept tumbling in and Niki was the only one on duty.

So James, being the good friend that he is, or something like that, slid up the cash register, because it can’t be that hard, right? He’s held enough short lived jobs in his life to know how to work a cash register, and though Niki seems a bit disgruntled when he notices the orders beginning to grow, he doesn’t say anything out right until he has completed the most recent batch, “you’re not supposed to do that. You don’t work here.”

“I like being helpful,” James offers, this is true though what he really wants to say is that he likes helping him.

“You don’t work here,” Niki repeated as if more for himself than anything else, “imagine if Clay had been in?”

“Then he would have helped with the rush, and I wouldn’t have,” James shrugs as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “you mean, if I still had,” he hums a bit at that, “probably would have hired me, which actually-”

“No,” Niki said sharply, pushing at James as if to get him out from behind the counter, this wasn’t the first time he had been back here, nor would it likely be the last, “don’t you give them any ideas.”

Still, this time since the café was practically empty, he gave up, holding his hands up in surrender, before slipping back around to the main part of the café, though really he just leaned across the counter to watch Niki as he cleaned down the equipment.

“So,” James drawls, “come here often.”

Niki turns away from the machine James almost worries that he’s going to topple over, he’s glares in James general direction, though there’s that tiny bit of coloring on his cheeks that he tries to deny at every chance he can that makes James certain that he’s on the right track.

James puts on his most innocent of faces and tugs at the sleeves of the blue cardigan that Niki had bought for him a few days before, it wasn’t like he had a choice in what he wore anymore, apparently looking like some sort of hipster douchebag was one of the requirements for sleeping on Niki’s couch, not that James particularly minded, other than when he had to shimmy out of these pants at night, since they liked to stick on the way down. One of these days he swore they were going to kill him.

Some life or death situation where he needed to get his pants off in a rush and he’d be trapped in his skinny jeans.

Or some desperate moment, where he’s trying to tear them off the person currently glaring at him. Though he supposes he wouldn't exactly mind in that particular case, well not too much.

“Why are men like coffee,” James asks after a pause, since obviously his other comment wasn’t good enough for the barista to even dignify him with a response.

This one at least seems to do the trick, because after a moment Niki grumbles and plays along asking, “why?”

“Because the best ones are hot and can keep you up all night.”

Niki snorts at that before saying, “cute.”

“Heaven must be missing an angel,” James continues, not caring that there is already an eyeroll, “because here’s on in this very coffee shop making me a skim mocha latte.”

“I’m taking that as your order,” Niki says, “ignoring the rest of that though. Really where did you get these things? 4chan?”

“Woah, hold on,” James says, mock offended, “4chan, really do I look like a 4chan guy to you?”

“Buzzfeed?”

“Ouch,” James says, putting his hand over his chest in mock hurt.

Actually, that one was true, but he’s never going to admit that to Niki, whose some sort of purist about these sorts of things, probably runs a blog too, James should really look into that.

“You’re pathetic and I hate you,” Niki says, with just the barest hint of fondness there, punctuating his words by grabbing a to go cup from the bunch, a cue for James to leave him alone that he chooses to ignore, and proceeds to write those very words on the side of the cup.

“You don’t hate me,” James points out, and Niki doesn’t even bother to deny it, he just shrugs his shoulders, before moving around to fix his drink for him.

He can’t help himself from watching him work, something that has become a problem more and more often for James. That’s why he’s in here so much now, not that he wasn’t before, but well, James doesn’t have much else to do at this point, and for all of Niki’s grumbling he doesn’t actually make an effort to push James away so that has to be something.

Plus he has heard from a variety of sources that his affections might not be entirely misplaced, so he doesn’t mind letting himself enjoy the view and then imagine it later when he’s alone.

Now, though he lets a playful smirk settle on his lips as he says, “I know those were awful. Forgive me?”

“No.”

“But I’ve got just one more,” James says taking a deep breath, knowing he has to time this one just right, he's spent far too long preparing for this one, “what’s your favorite Landon Pigg song?”

“Are you seriously trying to get me to say ‘Falling in Love in a Coffee Shop’,” Niki asks, there’s disbelief there, with a mix of amusement and something else that lets James know he was on the right track with this one.

Rather than answering, he just points one finger up towards the roof just in time for the next song on the playlist to come over the speaker system. As the voice over the speaks sings out, _“I think that possibly maybe I’ve fallen for you,”_ he is lucky enough to watch the brief moment where Niki smiles at him, before realizing what he’s done and attempting to shrug it off like it’s nothing.

He opens his mouth likely to tell James just how cheesy he is, but before he can James speaks up instead, “what are you doing Thursday?”

“Working,” Niki answers quickly.

“No you’re not,” James says knowingly, he has Niki’s schedule memorized by now, he's had it memorized for a while, “let me take you out. I know this great coffee shop, the place is a bit pretentious, but the drinks are alright, and I think you’ll like it.”

“You’re talking about here,” he replies, “the coffee shop we’re standing in. You’re offering to take me on a date to the place that I work at.”

“So, it’s a date then?”

“I – what?”

“Great, I’ll pick you up at seven,” James hits his hand on the counter top in victory.

“Pick me up at seven? We live together.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he repeats, this time leaning across the counter to take his now finished drink out of Niki’s hand, and grab a lid to secure to the top of it, before giving a fake salute and heading out the door.

The last thing he hears, yelled at his retreating back is Niki’s voice, “James, we live together!”


	14. Hot Chocolate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be studying, but I took a break to give you guys this chapter! Enjoy! :3
> 
> Also for those of you who follow me on tumblr and had to sit through me spamming as I tried to figure out the timeline I apologize now.
> 
> On that note, this chapter takes place on November 14th, and the first chapter's date was September 25th, so yay for time passing.

 ‘ _Hello! This is Marlene, you’ve reached my voicemail! Leave a message and I’ll get back to you ASAP! Unless you’re Niki, then I won’t, because hashtag yolo. There will be a beep, that’s your cue.’_

“Marlene seriously, pick up the fucking phone,” Niki hisses into the receiver, “I’m kind of freaking out right now, and thinking of skipping town or strangling myself with a scarf and I need to talk to somebody soon otherwise-“ _BEEP._

He keeps trying to tell himself that this is not a big deal, that it’s nothing, but he’s spent the last hour pacing around his room wearing holes into the floor and alternating between listening for the sound of a door opening and calling Marlene, who he knows is at work, but who should have texted him back if nothing else.

Niki keeps staring at the clock and convincing himself that this whole thing is stupid. They live together for god’s sakes. He had though the whole thing was moronic the second that it was proposed and had attempted to tell James as much, but for some reason the other guy hadn’t been home all day and that only seemed to make Niki more annoyingly anxious about the whole thing.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been on dates in a while, which to be far, he hadn’t, but that wasn’t even the problem. He was worried about fucking this up, because he actually had feelings for James, but he had been willing to push those all under the rug that way he wouldn’t mess things up between them.

He didn’t want to seem like the guy that in exchanged for living on his couch demanded sexual favors as payment.

Though once or twice when he was alone in his room he had imagined what it would be like to be that sort of the person, the thought was stimulating, but one that he vowed to never actually go through with, because believe it or not, Niki liked to think that he was a decently reasonable person.

Though with every glance at his clock with it counting down toward seven he began to feel less and less reasonable.

He’s not ready until the moment actually comes, having spent far too long starting into a mirror hating his expression and wishing that he could actually look decent for once, especially since they were going on a date. He ends up wrapping a brown knit scarf around his neck in case he ends up needing to hide beneath it or alternatively straggle himself.

Niki likes to keep his options open.

Too soon there’s a knock at the door, which seems silly, because James has a key, but the clock says seven and so Niki leaves his bedroom and head to the front door.

“You know you have a key,” he greets James.

“Yes I do,” he acknowledges, “but this is a date remember, the rules have changed.”

“This is stupid, we live together, you have a key, you could have just used it,” Niki insists, looking James up and down once.

He looks good, really good.

Whoever dressed him deserves all the awards, because there’s no way James would have thought to dress himself that way, but nevertheless Niki can appreciate the picture.

The black skinny jeans that cling to his legs, the faux leather combat boot, a dark blazer with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, worn over a blue button down with the top few buttons undone exposing his chest and a necklace that looks more vintage partygoer than hipster, but is still exceptionally appealing.

“Like what you see,” James says catching his gaze and Niki rolls his eyes.

“When did you gain a fashion sense,” he says in lieu of admitting what he actually things.

James just shrugs at him, that cocky smirk settled on his lips, “I’m a fast learner.”

Niki shorts at that. “This better be fucking good, Hunt.”

“Don’t worry, my little ratty friend, I’ll be sure to blow your mind.”

“Your what!?”

“Come on,” James says instead of answering him, reaching out to grab Niki’s hand a tug him out of the door. In fact he doesn’t let his hand go until they’ve descended the stairs, exited the apartment complex, and arrived at where James had parked his car.

Looks like he had found it after all.

Niki doesn’t bother hiding his look of distain as he looks at the beat up Mini Cooper, the car looks too small for somebody like James, but at the same time it seems to match him. Through the back passenger windows Niki can see a few boxes that he had yet to bring in and there’s a pillow stuffed up by the rear window.  He could only imagine how hard it must have been to live out of this, a normal car would have been bad enough, but this was like a baby car.

He normally hates sitting passenger, there have only been a few occasions where he’s had to, and every time the situation arises he spends his time grumbling pointing, out flaws in the car, and adjusting the stereo to the point where the driver normally threatens to kick him out.

Marlene’s actually kicked him out once, and Niki will never not be better about that.

Clay’s only threatened to, but if he wasn’t such a decent human being he probably would have kicked Niki out as well.

 The problem is Niki’s not exactly the type to just sit back and enjoy the ride, he gets antsy.

“I could have driven,” Niki complains almost as soon as they’ve pulled away from the curb.

 

“Stop that,” James grumbles, “here I’ve got something you’ll like, super indie, you’ve probably never heard of it.”

Niki knows he’s being teased the second James says it, but it’s not until the song actually comes on that he rolls his eyes, “Sweater Weather, really?”

“Mhmm.”

“This is in the top ten on itunes right now,” Niki replies bluntly.

“I was going for irony,” James says, reaching forward with the hand that’s not on the wheel to grab his iPod and flip through the songs, “aren’t you people into that?”

Niki opens his mouth to tell James that he’s being moronic or to keep both his hands on the wheel, but whatever he’s about to say completely vanishes from his mind as he takes in the Mini’s stereo systems.

“Hold on, your car has a tape deck and you’re using it to play your iPod,” Niki remarks, staring at the contraption of cords sticking out a perfectly functioning tape deck. He’s got an old school Walkman in his room that he uses to play old cassettes, but he’s suddenly very envious of James’ car’s stereo system.

“Well, we can’t all drive Ferraris.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Niki says, “I didn’t even know that there were still cars around with tape decks that’s actually pretty-“

“Lame?”

“Incredible,” Niki corrects him.

“You’re so hipster it’s not even funny,” James says, though he still laughs.

 “You know if you wanted actually use your tape deck for its intended purpose I could make you mix tape,” Niki offers, ignoring the way James teases him.

“Seriously?”

“Look if you’re just going to mock me then-“

“No, actually,” James starts turning to look at Niki, “that would be… cool.”

“Just keep your eyes on the road and don’t kill us,” Niki grumbles, ducking his head and turning to look out the passenger side window.

He stays silent for the rest of the drive, ignoring James’ terrible taste in music and mentally making a checklist of his own, things he needed to educate the other man on. Though he cannot stay quiet when he starts to recognize the streets.

“Wait, is this really happening,” Niki asks.

“Is what really happening?”

“I thought you were joking,” Niki states, “you’re not really taking me to the coffee shop, are you?”

“I have plans,” James insists as he pulls the car into the lot across the street from the shop.

He’s instantly wary of James’ plans, but he gets out of the car all the same, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat and following along after him into the coffee shop. When they enter the shop Niki narrows his eyes accusingly at the two people lounging by the counter who had so obviously been staring at the door, but quickly turn away and pretend to be busy once his glare is turned on them. Niki’s known both of them long enough to tell when somebody is faking work rather than actually doing it.

Traitors the both of them.

He tries to convey the feeling in the glare that he’s giving him and James lets out a quiet little laugh at his side, clearly noticing, but Niki doesn’t particularly care.

“How’s date night,” Clay asks when they arrive at the counter.

“Just started,” James replies, “so far he’s managed to insult my driving and music choices, though my pride remains intact.”

“He does that.”

“You know I’m standing right here,” Niki reminds them.

Not that they seem to care in the slightest.

Niki moves around to slip behind the counter like he usually does when he stops in for a drink on his day off, but Marlene blocks his path, leaning against the little door so that it cannot swing inwards.

“No customer’s behind the counter,” she says.

“I work here,” he points out.

“Not tonight.”

“This is absurd,” he informs her, before turning to where Clay and James are talking, “I work here.”

“Rules are rules,” James tosses his own words back at him.

“Fine, well then I’ll get a-“

“Actually I already ordered for you,” James cuts him off.

“You did what?”

“Two of the usual.”

Niki has a usual, a drink he gets every time, because it’s a drink that he makes. James’ usual, on the other hand, is whatever Niki feels like making at the time. However, with his access to the machines being cut off he has no clue what to expect. He wants to fight in, insist to everyone just how absurd they’re being, but instead he crossed his arms over his chest before slinking back over to were James is standing by the pickup counter.

When his drink arrives Niki squints at the hand writing on the side, in clear English it reads _‘use protection.’_ He’s not even certain that there’s a glare that even conveys how unfunny that is, but he definitely gives it his best shot.

James noticing his look leans over his shoulder to read it and laughs outright.  He’s glad one of them can find humor in the situation, because all Niki’s feeling is murderous rage.

He pointedly pulls his drink away from James’ peering eyes and takes a drink in spite of himself.

“Hot chocolate,” Niki says slightly dismayed that the cup hadn’t revealed his usual drink or even anything with coffee in it.

“It’s a natural aphrodisiac,” James winks.

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Right, well drink up, let’s go,” James says, catching Niki’s shoulder and helping to turn him towards the door.

“We’re not staying here?”

“Really, Niki,” he teases, “I do actually have a bit more class than that.”

“Then why did we even-“

“So I could show you off,” he whispers so only Niki can hear.

He’s not sure whether to be flattered or indignant. He settles for the less pleasant of the two, leveling James a look of disbelief before taking a sip of his drink.

“Where are we going,” he asks once they’re outside the shop and James doesn’t head back to his car, but rather in the general direction of the school campus where most of their business comes from.

“You’ll see,” James replies cryptic as always.

Niki tries to be patient he really does, he drinks his hot chocolate and follows James for about as long as he can, but Niki doesn’t like to be in the dark. He has a thing about that. He’s particular planning out almost every instance of his life that he can, keeping routines most of the time, James has been breaking those routines, those plans, and he cannot keep quiet for long.

“Where are we going,” Niki asks once more, knowing in his heart that any attempt to get an answer out of James is probably useless, but holding onto one small thread of hope.

“That’s a secret,” James answers.

He’s leading him through the university campus that neither of them are actually students at. By now most of the classes are done for the day so the place seem eerily empty, a few stragglers race down the bike paths, keeping their heads down as they head back to their dormitories. Niki’s only slightly envious of them.

James eventually comes to stop in the center of the campus in front of the clock tower.

“I don’t understand,” Niki starts.

“I’ve got friends in high places,” James replies, reaching into his pocket to pull out a key ring that is clearly not his; if the Victoria’s Secret keychain hadn’t been a giveaway then the beaded keychain that spelled out ‘Suzy’ would have been enough of a hint.

“You didn’t steal those did you,” Niki asks warily.

“What no,” he says aghast, “what sort of person do you think I am? Actually don’t answer that.”

James fumbles with the keys for a moment until he finds the right one and sticks it into the panel next to the elevator door, which opens for them.

The elevator opens on the top floor of the tower where the mechanisms of the clock are before him, bells and gears and things that Niki cannot exactly make heads or tails of, but still fascinate him. James spares no times for those though, instead he holds out a hand to tug Niki with him to a rickety stairwell that leads up to the roof of the tower.

It seems like a bad idea, but Niki doesn’t voice his concerns, instead he climbs up the last few stairs before it opens onto the slope of the roof. They’re, at least, ten stories up and the view is incredible, the lights of the campus and surrounding city shine out around them, twinkling and lighting up the otherwise dark expanse of the sky.

James takes a seat on the edge of the tower’s roof, legs hanging over the edge and pats the spot next to him.

A spot that Niki takes without a second thought.

Any thought about this being against the law or dangerous is gone when he realizes how beautiful the night is.

His eyes instantly scanthe city’s lights down below.

He’s always liked being up high, but this is completely magical, it’s something else entirely. He feels like screaming from the rooftop, just because he can, but he doesn’t. Instead he sits there mesmerized  

“For you,” James offers, a cigarette between his fingers, catching Niki’s attentions.

“What?”

“Somebody once told me, that smoking’s better the higher up you are,” James repeats his words back at him.

The words from that night, the night of that stupid party where Niki had dragged him up onto the roof of his friend’s apartment complex.

“You remembered that,” Niki asks nervously.

If James remembered that he liked smoking on rooftops, then he likely remembered the rest of the night, remembered how much of a fool Niki had been. Why hadn’t he said something? He could have said something a while ago, before Niki had invited him to live with him, before he had so obviously made a fool of himself.

“Why didn’t you say anything if you,” Niki starts shaking his head as his hands shake over the lighter. Eventually he manages to focus on it long enough to get the thing long enough to it lit, but he doesn’t finish his sentence.

James has to already know, because when he reaches over the steal the cigarette away from Niki and take a drag on it he says, “I don’t know what happened, I came in there that day wanting to make it up to you, but I never figured out what I did wrong,” he sighs, “I remember almost everything about that night, well up until you left, once you left I knew I had fucked up, but I didn’t know how so I got blacked out, but that’s not the point.”

“What is the point, then?”

“The point is, I really fucking like you,” James admits.

Niki wants to say, _‘I really fucking like you too,’_ but instead all he manages is “oh.”

“Is that a good ‘oh’ or a bad one?”

“What don’t you guess,” Niki says.

And he’s leaning across the distance between them, his eyes fluttering closed, when something else catches him off-guard, it feels like an earthquake the way the ground rumbles beneath them, but then he hears an extremely loud and familiar chime.

Never really expected that a clock could be such a cock block.

Niki startles a bit, making a rather undignified noise, before realizing that James has reached out to steady him, their perch suddenly a bit too high up for Niki’s liking. It’s a bit awkward and silly and just his luck and Niki can’t help the laugh that escapes him. Usually when he laughs it’s sarcastically or in a mocking manner, but this is something else. It warms him to his core in a way that makes it infectious and before he knows it James is laughing as well, without even really understanding why.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” James says once he catches his breath, “I forgot-“

“About the fact that this is a clock tower,” Niki supplies, his own laughter dying down, but finding it rather hard to wipe the smile off his face.

“Right,” James hangs his head playfully, “now where were we?”

“Getting off this tower before we fall to our deaths the next time it chimes?”

“That’s like an hour away,” James points out, “literally. Literally an hour away.”

“Yes, but,” Niki starts. However, he never gets to finish his sentence, because James has grabbed ahold of his scarf and tugged him forward, completely ignoring the fact that they’re sitting on top of a tower and could fall if they wiggled too much.

Though oddly enough Niki cannot find that he even really minds. Not when James is kissing him like that, just like he had imagined it would be all those weeks ago when he saw him in the coffee shop and slowly realized that he was falling for him. This though, it’s so much better, because he doesn’t taste like cheap beer, he tastes like chocolate and a hint of smoke and something else that is unmistakably James.

Niki never wants to move from that moment, he would be perfectly happy if he never had to, because his heart is pounding against his ribs and everything just seems so right.

When the clock tower chimes again an hour later, Niki hardly even notices. 


	15. Earl Grey Tea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah, the rating increased, look at that.   
> Ye be warned.

He’s done this sort of thing plenty of times before, though usually it involves a lot more to drink and somebody that he doesn’t particularly care for. James has been called an immortal fuck by friends, and he normally prides himself on that reputation, giving somebody the one night stand of their life.

This is completely different, because for once in his life, James thinks he might actually want something more than a one night stand, more than his rare friends with benefits arrangements.

He wants to do this time and time again to not lose the one good thing that he has going for him. For the person who made him stay, who kept him from running away like he was always used to, like he had always intended to.

The very person who is currently pressed up against him, who he barely managed to keep his hands off of long enough to get them back to their apartment. He had honestly considered just pulling the car over and doing it there, but James had wanted to do this right so he had kept his hands to himself until the door clicked locked behind them.

Waiting another moment had been out of the question.

“God Niki, I just,” James starts, “fuck, so fucking long, and you.”

There’s a laugh against his mouth, “I know.”

He knew.

Why hadn’t they been doing this before, weeks before, months before? Back when James had met Niki that overcast September morning, he should have said something, but isn’t it better having waited for it. He imagines briefly how that would have gone, a one night stand if he was lucky, instead he has this, he has something far greater than a onetime thing.

If things went well he could probably get this again tomorrow night, and the night after that. Not that James doubts for a second that things won’t go well, because it’s Niki, and he’s perfect.

Those stupid skinny jeans tight against his skin as he bucks into James and it’s second nature as he reaches between them to unbutton them, though getting them down is another matter entirely and James swears he had a nightmare about this before.

Niki laughs against his mouth, “you were right about the breathing room.”

For a second James doesn’t understand, then he remembers their conversation back when Niki had dragged him around the mall insisting that his lack of fashion sense was a serious crime. “I told you.”

“I want to blow you,” Niki says suddenly changing the topic as he grinds their hips together again. Niki’s trapped between him and the wall, but for some reason James feels like Niki’s the one in control here, or that might just be a side effect of that tone of voice, the way he drops it just enough to send a shiver through him that goes south.

“You can’t just say things like that,” James says, his voice already too wrecked for his liking.

“I mean it.”

If James had though Niki’s coffee making skills were mind blowing, but this was something else entirely.  Something that left him more of a mess that he had ever been in his life, barely able to hold back from thrusting forward as Niki took him in.

It is something they’re definitely going to have to repeat later, but as James’ vision goes spotty and he pulls Niki back up with him, they somehow manage to make it past the entryway and stumble into the bedroom that James has only seen once or twice, shedding clothing as they move until he’s pushed him into the bed, pale skin contrasting with the dark red sheets.

“Now it’s my turn,” James says as he shimmies off the last article of clothing separating them and makes sure to hold up to his rather infamous nickname.

The sound Niki makes when he finally comes undone makes it all worth it.

When they’ve finished and James is moving to head back out onto the couch, a hand stops him, encircling his wrist and pulling him back towards the bed, “I’m not done with you yet.”

\---

The morning after is the change between them, the thing that really separates this from the rest of James’ encounters over the years.

No more is he convincing whichever co-ed he brought for shower sex so he has an excuse to use their bathroom, his stomach feels relatively stable, there’s not a hangover pounding in his head, and the best part of it all is that he doesn’t have to leave. Nobody is eager to shoo him out the door. Instead he can just lay there in Niki’s bed and watch the way the light coming through the apartment’s window catches on his dark curls and puts shadows on the contours of his face, down to his throat and chest, the rest of him barely hidden under a small sheet.

Thankfully James had managed to convince him to forego the flannel pajamas the night before, no matter how adorable they are, James prefers him like this.

He presses a kiss to Niki’s cheek, wondering when he became such a sentimental fool, before quietly slipping out of the bed.

As much as he wants to just stay there and watch the subtle rise and fall of Niki’s chest as he sleeps, he has something else in mind.

A surprise that takes him into the kitchen, where James ends up making a bit more noise than he intended to, praying to whatever gods he doesn’t believe in that Niki manages to sleep through it all.

His prayers go unanswered.

“What are you doing,” comes a voice from behind him. James freezes caught red handed his hand still holding a box of Earl Grey as he spins around to look at Niki.

Niki who still only has that bed sheet wrapped around him, his hair which usually so nice and curly sticks flat on one of the sides of his head, a purpling bruise on his collarbone that James had sucked there the night be.

He notices his gaze and tries to glare, but despite all of that James can’t help himself from staring, Niki looks incredible.  

“I wanted to make you tea,” James says slowly, holding the box forward now as a peace offering, “but I couldn’t remember where you kept the electric kettle.”

“Second cupboard on the left,” is all Niki says.

Sure enough when James looks in the cupboard there it is, “look at that,” he laughs.

He barely has time to set the electric kettle down on the counter before Niki’s crossed over to where he’s standing. He hesitates for the smallest of moment before reaching up towards James to press a kiss on his lips.

When Niki pulls back he smiles sheepishly and says, “just wanted to check that this was really happening.”

“And the verdict is?”

“You’re a sap.”

“I’m your sap,” James corrects, “if you’ll have me?”

“Was that even a question?”


	16. Hazelnut Coffee

Niki has been waiting for an ambush the entire day.

He had already having gotten the third degree from Clay the day before, he faux-casually had asked how his date went and feigned disinterest. Marlene, on the other hand, was not even pretending to be uninterested, and spent most of the day shooting him eager looks as if expecting him to spill of the details any moment.

Niki likes to think that he’s better than that, that he doesn’t kiss and tell, that some things are meant to be private.

His coworker couldn’t agree less.

About two hours into shift it happens, when the morning rush has already died down and they’re wiping down the machines. Marlene corners him between the wall and the frappe machine, leaning against it, she narrows her eyes at him, “how did your date go? The other day. With James?” She says his name sickeningly sweetly, something that irks him mildly.

“That’s none of your business.”

She groans at him, still unmoving. “You never texted me back? Did you know I sent you like 47 texts?”

Niki rolls his eyes at her reference, “so what now, are you going to burn my apartment down?”

“I’m considered it,” Marlene insists, a nervously devious look on her face.

He ignores that, sliding around her now that he’s finished with the machine, tossing the dishcloth with the other dirty ones.

“Did you get laid,” she asks point blank, and he can’t help the flush that rises to his face.

“We’re in public,” he snaps.

“Did you get laid,” she repeats, this time in German.

“As I said before, and I will say again,” he answers in the same language, “that is none of your business.”

“I’m just looking out for you! That’s what friends do,” she insists, “I just want to know if my little Niki is still virginal and sweet or if he has been corrupted.”

Niki sputters, thankful that nobody else can understand them. “I wasn’t before!”

“Ah ha~” Her face is far too triumphant to be a good thing, and it’s only as he takes in her expression that he realizes what he just said.

“I mean-“

“First off, you got laid! I’m so proud of you,” she smiles, “and secondly, obviously you’re not. I took care of that little problem for you remember, you’re not half bad for somebody who likes dick, if I do say so myself.”

“Because you have such experience with that?”

“I do,” Marlene chirps back, “but that my dear is not the point!”

“Are you arriving at that soon?”

“You got laid! Which begs the question, how was the sex? Because I’ve seen that guy, and heard the rumors. I mean – I’d probably tap that if you didn’t have dibs.”

“I hate you.”

“I’m curious!”

He flips her off, leaving her question unanswered, before moving around towards the backroom of the coffee shop. He has some paperwork that needs to be done, storeroom accounts that Clay asked him to get done before the end of the week. Nothing too taxing, something he really could have honestly done at any other point in time, but he had been eager to escape Marlene’s persistent nagging, so it provided an easy distraction.

While she does shout obscene things at him in German through the doorway, thankfully she makes no move to actually come back there and bug him so for a time he can enjoy a bit of peace.

Though he never expected that to last for too long.

 “Ohh Niki,” Marlene coos, and he feels very much like coming through the door back to the storefront and telling her to shut up, when he hears a familiar booming laugh that make his hands stutter over the paperwork, “your boyfriend’s here.”

He forgets all about the work he was supposed to be doing, and instead turns to the mirror, looking himself over once, making sure to settle a composed and unamused look on his face, contrary to the expression that had appeared on it when he heard the distant rumbling of James’ voice.

When Niki had left the apartment this morning James had still been curled up in his, their, bed, insisting that it was far too early to be awake and that Niki should just call in sick and stay in bed with him. Niki had replied by telling him that one of them had “real work to do” before kissing him senselessly.

With the way James had been so content it bed, he hadn’t expected to see him for a while, but now he was here, and it was wonderful. His blond hair was a mess, a case a permanent bed head, that Niki had grown rather fond of. The v-neck he wore under his blazer seemed a bit too tight, which made for a wonderful view. This frustrated Niki because he was relatively certain that the shirt belonged to him not James, but also because he wasn’t allowed to look the irrespirable when Niki was at work and couldn’t do anything about it.

“Morning,” James greets him, leaning forward against the counter.

“Morning,” Niki repeats, unable to really form a coherent thought at that moment in time, the bored look he had tried for before is definitely slipping up. “What are you doing here,” he finally manages.

James makes a confused face at him, “coffee? My usual? We’ve done this before.”

Certainly they had, but not since their relationship parameters had changed so drastically. It catches him off guard for a moment, before Niki nods, grabbing one of the to-go cups, when he would normally right ‘asshole’ on the cup or something similar, he stops short.

That’s another thing that’s changed, is he now expected to write something cutesy on the side of the cups like he had done back when he had been dating Marlene?

She had been fond of him doodling hearts on the cups.

He couldn’t imagine James wanting something like that.

No, in his case, it would be more suitable to write something dirty on the cup like, ‘sex tonight?’ Or something else incredibly obvious, but likely more lewd than he felt comfortable writing.

However, some sort of obnoxious pet name was sure to get a smile out of him, something that could easily be passed off as a joke between them later.

He takes one glance back at James before finally uncapping the pen and writing ‘Pookie’ on the side of it. Cringing internally as he does so.

However, when he hands James the hazelnut coffee, he gets to enjoy the laugh that follows after it.

“You guys are so fucking cute I’m going to die,” Marlene calls from off to the side.

Which reminds him, “Actually James, can I talk to you in the back for a second,” Niki says a bit nervously running his hands over his jeans.

Before really giving James a chance to argue he spins back on his heel towards the back door, it takes James a moment to get around the counter and join him, letting out a low whistle as he enters the room, “so that’s what’s back here?”

Niki makes a vague noise of agreement before speaking up, “sorry about Marlene if she was hassling you or anything before I got out there. She does that.”

“It’s fine,” James beams at him.

“Okay.”

“You know, when you said you wanted to talk I got all worried, but if that’s all then-“

“Are we dating,” Niki cuts him off, forcing the words out before he can regret them. When James just blinks at him, Niki barrels onwards, “I mean, is this a real relationship, or just roommates with benefits. I don’t mind if it’s just that, but I don’t want you to be doing this just in exchange for rent, I don’t need your money or your sympathy if that’s the case. It’s fine. Just I know she called you my boyfriend, and if you don’t want this to be anything serious like that I can tell her to shut up, and we can just be chill, I-“

The rest of what he was going to say is cut off as James moves forward to cup his face in his hands and pull him into a breathtaking kiss.

When he finally pulls back, there’s a smile on his face, “I thought we already went over this?”

“I guess,” Niki shrugs, “I just wanted to double check.”

“What part of ‘I really fucking like you’ was unclear before?”

The idea that anybody could like him like that blows his mind more than he cares to admit. So he just shakes his head. “I’m an idiot.”

“No you’re not,” James insists, kissing him once more.

This time a far deeper kiss than before one that causes a small keening noise to escape his lips, and makes him want to jump James in that back store room.

A few breathless moments later James pressed their foreheads together and says in a mirthful tone, “we can even make it facebook official.” 


	17. Soy Latte

It’s been long enough that James stops think that he’s dreaming when he wakes up in bed with Niki’s body pressed up against his, or when he gets to be the one to hear those soft keening noises Niki makes as James surprises him with the ‘breakfast of champions’ as he’s so aptly declared it.

Though more often than not, by time James finally manages to pull himself out of their bed Niki’s already gone for the day, working at the coffee shop, which James usually finds himself wandering too with a newspaper in hand where he’ll sip Niki’s latest concoction and read through the classified section looking for somebody needing work done that James can do.

He’s already helped their landlady with every think that could be fixed around the apartment complex, and he feels bad enough letting Niki pay for their rent alone.

Today though when James enters the coffee shop he notices the lines longer than usual and all of the chairs and tables occupied with students from the university studying from textbooks and frantically writing papers on their laptops.

“If you want a drink you’re going to have to make it yourself,” Niki says sharply when he sees him enter the shop.

He’s irritated that much James can tell. He’s gotten pretty good at noticing when Niki gets to the end of his leash, and the steady stream of customers are definitely taking a toll on him. He keeps doing that thing where he glares at them as they order and makes tsking noises under his breath at their choices.

So James does what he can to help, forgoing making his own drink for sliding over to where the waiting customers are, turning on a bright smile and asking the next person in line for their order. This isn’t the first time he’s done this, though never on such a busy day, but he knows how to work the cash register and what to write on the cups to that Niki understand him.

While the barista says no sort of thanks, there is a definite lack of tension in his shoulders when he comes over to grab the next drink order, which is the best James is going to get out of him. At least, he’s not getting the usual ribbing of how since he doesn’t work there he shouldn’t be back there.

They’re both so caught up in surge of customers in need of caffeine for their exams that neither of them really notices the backdoor swinging open and Clay finally emerging with somebody else in tow. James sees the exchange before turning back to the next order, not really making much of it, not knowing who the other person was and thus not really caring.

That is until he can hear the voices clearly, the unfamiliar man in his fine-pressed suit speaks with an Italian accent and asks, “does he work for me?”

James knows he’s being talked about at that moment, and before he can open his mouth and explain, he hears Clay speaking up in a rushed tone, “a recent hire, actually,” before pausing and speaking in a louder tone, this one clearly one that James was meant to overhear, “Oi, Hunt, wear your damn apron,” he says before an apron identical to the one that Niki wears was tossed at him.

He catches it effortlessly, thanking all those years playing sports as a kid. “You got it,” James says, pulling the apron over his head and tying it around his waist, before turning to the next customer.

Niki’s beside him now, eyes darting between James and the other men.

“You shouldn’t have been back here,” Niki hisses in a tone that only James can hear.

“Yes, well-“

“That’s Enzo, he owns the place. If I lose my job because of you being back here,” Niki starts in a frantic whisper.

“I don’t think that will be a problem.”

“And why not?”

“Because looks like I just got hired,” he gestures to the apron.

“That’s not, he’s just covering our asses,” Niki insists.

James laughs a bit at that, knowing it’s probably the explanation, before turning to take the next person’s order. A young woman who looks nervously between them before asking if Pumpkin Spice Lattes are still a thing that she can order. Niki’s already grumbling under his breath and the orders, both forgetting about Clay’s interruption.

The truth of the matter doesn’t come out until about an hour later, when the rush has seemed to die down and Enzo has left the shop. Clay returning to work with Niki behind the counter, nods at James once.

However, when James makes to pull the apron off he stops him.

“How would you like a job here,” Clay asks, “you help out so much anyways, I feel bad not paying you.”

“I-“

“You can’t,” Niki says cutting in between them, “he doesn’t even know how to work the machines.”

“He’s got a hang of the register and can put up with you,” Clay replies, “every time I get employees that can actually make coffee you scare them off with that scowl and bad attitude. If James has been able to put up with this long then I don’t see how working together would change that.”

“He’s not that hard to deal with once you get the hang of it,” James grins.

“Weaker men have tried and failed.”

James could see that, Niki with his naturally abrasive attitude turns customers away. His work ethic while terrible was what actually drew James to him. James liked the challenge, but he could easily see why other people would be less open to dealing with somebody so stubborn. His bitchy resting face didn’t help either.

“That’s why I hired Marlene, remember. She was only person that could put up with Niki, other than me. Figured now that we found you,” Clay nods at James, “another kindred spirit. I should jump on the chance. We could use the extra hands around here.”

“The schedule’s already set though when would he even work,” Niki butts in, stubbornly contradictory.

“Marlene told me the other day she needed less hours; her dissertation review is coming up. Which means we have an opening, if you’re willing.”

“I am,” James says, not just because he needs the work, needs the money, but because it would give him an excuse to spend more time with Niki and he wasn’t half bad at it.

Niki, on the other hand, seemed fiercely opposed to the idea.

“But you’re not,” James sighs, looking at Niki.

“I just don’t want thing to get awkward,” Niki admits.

“I promise we won’t have sex in the backroom,” James says with a laugh, “unless you’re willing.”

“That’s a definite no,” Clay jumps in.

 “And you can’t even make coffee, so-“

“Woah, hold on, who said I can’t make drinks,” James interrupts.

“You microwaved tea the other day,” Niki says in a tone of disgust.

“I couldn’t find the electric kettle,” James comes to his own defense.

“Microwaved tea.”

“I think you’re really just worried that I would be a better barista than you, that suddenly Niki Lauda wouldn’t be the best barista in the west. That’s what this really is about,” James smirks.

Niki rolls his eyes, “oh please.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” James says, “I’m going to make a drink that will knock your socks off, so good that you will beg Clay to hire me.”

“Doubt it.”

“I’ll make you the best soy latte you’ve ever had.”

“Fine, do it,” Niki gives in.

James always has said that he likes a challenge. And while he’s never actually operated the machines before he’s seen Niki do it enough time that it comes natural as he weighs out the coffee grounds and runs things through the machine.

The finished product is a steaming drink in a mug with a carefully done heart made of soy milk in the center. Which gets a slightly surprised look out of Niki, though that doesn’t even compare to the noise he makes as he takes a drink. It’s not his usual hum, but rather one of pleasure, something that James has managed to get out of him only a few times before, usually when they’re wearing a lot less clothing.

He watches now though, and Niki’s eyes flutter shut, taking in a long drink of the savory liquid before breathing out all at once and saying two simple words, “hire him.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR READING ALONG!!
> 
> I hope this has been as enjoyable for you to read as it has been for me to write!!


End file.
